to a study of volunteers in a driving simulator. The researchers conclude that 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.

The researchers studied the driving skills of 40 volunteers who followed a virtual car

in a driving simulator which was programmed to brake at random.

Each of the volunteers performed the task four times: without distractions, while

using a handheld phone, while 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 that talking into the phone, whether

hands-free or hand-held, impaired their driving. Drivers were 9% slower hitting the

brakes, 24% more variable in the distance they kept behind the lead car and 19% slower

resuming their normal speed. Their impairment was similar to that when they drove

drunk.

Proposed new legislation which is passing through parliament will mean that drivers

caught using a hand-held phone will receive three points on their licence. A spokesman

for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents welcomed the move. "We hope that

will give the law new teeth," he said.

The society had wanted hands-free kits to be included from the start, he added,

although he conceded that this would be difficult to enforce.

"We want people to take the law very seriously," said a spokesman for the Department

for Transport. "We don't want people to lose their licence, we want them to hang up."

He said there were no plans to extend the law to cover hands-free kits, but added that

users who became distracted and caused an accident risked other penalties. "Don't

think you are above the law because you are using hands-free."

Another study, carried out by researchers at the University of Michigan Transport

Research Institute, which involved observing 36 drivers covering more than 80,000

miles on the road, found that speaking to passengers could be as distracting as

talking on a mobile. Drivers nattering to the person next to them strayed further from

the centre of their lane, for example.

Although less research has been done on the effects of distracting passengers, the

result goes against conventional wisdom. Researchers had assumed that passengers would

be more likely to keep quiet at difficult driving moments.