https://www.jwatch.org/

Parents Commonly Engage in Distracted Driving with Children in the Car

Jenny Radesky, MD

reviewing McDonald CC et al. J Pediatr 2018 Jul 6

About half of parents talk on the phone; about a third engage in texting.

Distracted driving accounts for thousands of motor vehicle deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries in the U.S. every year. The use of mobile devices to talk, text, or access the Internet by parents while driving with children in the car not only contributes to these fatalities, but also models that it is acceptable behavior and increases the likelihood that the children who observe it will someday do it, too.

To determine how often parents engage in distracted driving when a child is in the car and what factors are associated with this behavior, researchers conducted an online survey of 760 parents of children aged 4 to 10 years that included questions about mobile device use and other driving-related activities.

While driving with a child in the car, 52% of parents talked on a hands-free phone, 47% talked on a hand-held phone, 34% read text messages, 27% sent text messages, and 14% used social media; there were no race or gender differences in phone-use while driving. Parents with higher incomes were more likely to use a hands-free device and to read or send text messages. Parents who engaged in other unsafe driving practices (such as not always using their child's restraint system) compared with those who did not, were more likely to talk, text, or use social media while driving; these associations were particularly strong for parents who reported driving under the influence of alcohol in the past.

Benjamin Hidalgo-Matlock

Skin Care Physicians of Costa Rica

4000-1054

2101-9574

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