Title: Accident risk of car drivers during mobile telephone use

Authors: Fridulv Sagberg

Addresses: Department of Safety and Environment, Institute of Transport Economics, P.O. Box 6110, Etterstad, N-0602 Oslo, Norway

Abstract: About 9000 Norwegian car drivers who had recently reported an accident to their insurance company, responded to a postal questionnaire about mobile telephone use and other distractors during the latest accident. Mobile telephoning during the accident was reported by 0.66% of guilty drivers and 0.30% of innocent drivers. Mobile telephones were estimated to be used in 0.86% of the accidents, which is 72% higher than the expected proportion estimated on the basis of ||induced exposure||. The number of accidents during telephoning was too low for significant differences between hands-free and hand-held telephones to appear. Rear-end collision is the most frequent accident type during telephoning. Both radios and CD players cause more accidents than the mobile telephone.

Keywords: mobile telephone; distraction; driver behaviour; traffic safety; accident risk; induced exposure.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2001.001929

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2001 Vol.26 No.1, pp.57-69

Published online: 15 Aug 2003 *

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