How to make the roadway fly by

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Updated Dec 14, 2009

If you still have any doubt about how dangerous texting while driving is, a new study offers some comparisons.

A post from the Poynter Institute, a journalism education group, notes that 26 percent of teens admit to poking out messages while they’re behind the wheel, according to a Pew study. I bet the reality is higher than that, but what’s really scary are results from a Car and Driver magazine experiment.

Using a deserted air strip, an editor was tested under four circumstances on response time for braking upon seeing a brake light. Driving at 70 mph with full attention and no impairment, it took a half second to brake. It got worse with these handicaps:

  • Legally drunk, add 4 feet for stopping distance
  • Reading e-mail, add 36 feet
  • Sending a text, add 70 feet

Thanks to my Overdrive colleague Lucinda Coulter, who noted the Poynter item as well as this next bit of news.

The daughter of famous boxer George Foreman, Freeda George Foreman, is accused of crashing her Cadillac CTS into a garage, damaging it and five cars inside, according to KTRK-TV Houston. She wasn’t texting, but eating cake, according to what the garage owner told the TV station.