US: Using a hands-free kit while at the wheel is as dangerous as drinking and driving, according to a study of volunteers in a driving simulator. The researchers conclude all mobile-phone use while driving should be banned.
"Just like you put yourself and other people at risk when you drive drunk, you put yourself and others at risk when you use a cellphone and drive. The level of impairment is very similar," said the report's lead author, David Strayer, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah in the United States.
The researchers studied the driving skills of 40 volunteers, who followed a virtual car in a driving simulator programmed to brake at random.
Each volunteer performed the task four times: without distractions, using a handheld phone, speaking on a hands-free kit, and after downing enough vodka to put them just over the drink-driving limit.
As in previous studies, the researchers found talking into the phone, whether hands-free or hand-held, impaired their driving. Drivers were 9 per cent slower hitting the brakes, 24 per cent more variable in the distance they kept behind the lead car, and 19 per cent slower resuming their normal speed. Their impairment was similar to that when they drove drunk.
Another study, by the University of Michigan Transport Research Institute, which involved 36 drivers covering more than 80,000 miles, found speaking to passengers could be as distracting as talking on a mobile.