Friday, August 17, 2007

Link between cellphone yakking and accidents questioned

Conventional opinion, and most previous research, on cellphones and driving has been challenged by Saurabh Bhargava and Vikram Pathania, graduate students of economics at UC Berkeley. Their report "Driving Under the (Cellular) Influence: The Link Between Cell Phone Use and Vehicle Crashes" summarizes their study of crash statistics and cellphone usage by drivers between 1987 and 2005 in all U.S. states. They were surprised to find little correlation between crashes and cellphone use.
A summary of the research, including Bhargava and Pathania's ideas on how their findings might be explained, can be found on the UC Berkeley news site.

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