Driving while text messaging or fiddling with an MP3 player is dangerous -- even more hazardous than talking on a cell phone, a new study shows.
Researchers at Eastern Virginia Medical School and Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk enlisted 21 teens between the ages of 16 and 18 to take part in a series of simulated driving experiments.
Each teen sat in the bucket seat of a simulated car, driving the vehicle through simulated scenery, in rural, then urban settings in 10-minute time blocks.
First they drove through the virtual scenes without distractions of any kind. Then they drove through the same scenes while text messaging, while talking on a cell phone, and finally while operating an MP3 music player, Donald Lewis, MD, chief of Eastern Virginia Medical School’s department of pediatrics and co-researcher, tells WebMD.
The findings, although not surprising, were frightening, Lewis says.
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