We’ve always known of the dangers of text messaging at the wheel of a car, but there haven’t been studies conducted on exactly how dangerous such behavior can be. Now, a new study shows how the risk of accidents can increase when you text and drive.

The study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute studied the behavior of truck drivers, and covered more than 6 million miles of road. As part of the study, the researchers installed cameras inside the driver’s vehicle, and evaluated a number of points, including the movement of the driver’s eyes as they performed various activities, like talking on the cell phone, reaching for an object and text messaging. The results show that the greatest danger came from the tasks that took people’s eyes off the road for the longest period of time.

Text messaging has the highest distraction rates of the four tasks compared to non distracted driving. The risk of a crash or a near crash is 23.2 times as high as with a driver who is not distracted. The data from the study shows that drivers who were text messaging had their attention taken away from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds. That might not seem like much, but according to the study, 4.6 seconds is enough time to drive a vehicle the length of a football field at 55 mph.

In case of a truck driver reaching for a cell phone, the risk of an accident was 6.7 times as high as for a non-distracted driver. In case of a truck driver carrying on a cell phone conversation while driving, the risk of an accident or near accident was 1.3 times as high as for a non-distracted driver. In case of a truck driver dialing a cell phone, the risk of a crash or near crash was 5.9 times as high that for a non-distracted driver.

In case of light automobiles, dialing a cell phone seemed to raise the risk of an accident or near accident by as much as 2.8 times that for a non distracted driver.

Carrying on a conversation on a cell phone raised the risk of an accident or near accident by as much as 1.3 times as that for a non distracted driver.

Reaching for a cell phone or other devices increased the risk of an accident or near accident by 1.4 times that for a non-distracted driver.

The study seemed to disagree with other studies that have shown that a person who is driving and talking on his cell phone has a risk of an accident that’s equal to that of a drunk driver. The Virginia Tech researchers believe that talking or listening on a cell phone allows drivers to keep their eyes on the road, and therefore, doesn’t raise the risk of an accident to the degree that text messaging, which requires a driver to keep their eyes off the road longer, does.

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