Recently while driving from New York to Pennsylvania, I suddenly realized I had taken the wrong exit for the New Jersey Turnpike.

For me it was a startling mistake that had me going north instead of south, and added at least a half hour to my commute. It had happened while I was talking to a friend on the phone. Even though I had been using a headset and had both hands on the wheel, I still made an important driving error.

Beyond my driving mistake, there are plenty of data to show that cellphone conversations and driving don’t mix. My Well column in Tuesday’s Science Times explores the science of cellphones and driving, and helps explain why even hands-free cellphone use takes a toll on your driving ability. Now the National Safety Council has called for a total ban on cellphone use while driving.

Read the full story, “A Problem of the Brain, Not the Hands: Group Urges Phone Ban for Drivers,” and then join the discussion below. Are you willing to give up your hands-free cellphone calls during your driving time?

Drivers over 70 are keeping their licenses longer and driving more than earlier generations, a trend that has led to dire predictions about car accident risks for aging baby boomers.

But new research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety should ease those fears. It shows that fatal car accidents involving older drivers have actually declined markedly in the past decade.

“It’s not what people had expected to see,” said Anne T. McCartt, senior vice president for research at the insurance institute. “There were some studies, including our own research, that had predicted older driver crashes would become a bigger and bigger problem.”

Compared with middle-aged drivers (age 35 to 54), drivers 75 or older have far higher death rates per mile traveled. (So do drivers under 20.) Death rates jump markedly after age 80. But that does not necessarily mean that older people are worse drivers or that they are far more likely to crash.

Car fatalities involving young people are almost entirely explained by the fact that they have more accidents than experienced drivers. But while crash rates are slightly higher for older people, most of their increased risk for a fatal car accident is explained by the fact that they tend to be more frail. Older drivers are more likely to suffer a severe injury, particularly to the chest, or other medical complications.

But fatalities per capita among older people have decreased 35 percent since 1975 and are now at their lowest level. And while fatal crashes are declining over all, the rates for older driving deaths are falling the fastest. Between 1997 and 2006, the annual decline in fatal crash rates was 0.18 fewer fatal crashes per 100,000 middle-aged licensed drivers. By comparison, the annual decline for drivers age 70 to 74 was 0.55 fatal crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers, and for those over 80 it was 1.33.

Older drivers are also less likely to cause drunken driving accidents. In 2007, just 6 percent of drivers 70 and older who died in crashes had blood-alcohol levels above the legal limit. The figure for fatally injured drivers age 16 to 59 was 41 percent.

The insurance institute is conducting further research to determine why the risks appear to be going down for older drivers. It may be that today’s older drivers are simply in better physical and mental shape than their counterparts a decade ago, so they are not only less likely to make a driving mistake, but also less frail and better able to survive injuries.

It may also be that driving patterns among older adults have changed, leading to more highway driving, which is safer than driving on local roads. Older drivers may be more likely than in the past to wear a seat belt or to drive a safer car.

Research suggests education campaigns have increased awareness about older driving risks.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins recently reported results of the Salisbury Eye Evaluation and Driving Study (Seeds for short), which looked at vision, cognition and health changes among 1,200 licensed drivers age 67 to 87. The study, published in the journal Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, found that after a year 1.5 percent of the drivers had given up driving on their own, and 3.4 percent more had voluntarily restricted their driving because of declining vision.

“We’re intent on doing research to try to figure out why we’re seeing this,” Dr. McCartt said. “It’s certainly a possibility that older drivers compared to 10 or 20 years ago are in better condition in various ways.”

By now most people know that cell phones are a deadly distraction for drivers. But what about chatting with passengers?

New research sheds light on the role that conversation — whether in person or on the phone — has on driving skill.

Researchers at the University of Utah found that all conversations are not created equal. There is something uniquely distracting about talking on the phone when you’re behind the wheel; conversations with people inside the car are far less distracting to drivers. Unlike cell phone callers, chatty passengers instinctively stop talking when driving conditions change, and they offer an extra set of eyes to alert drivers to nearly-missed exits or erratic drivers. Read more…

(Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Is a car the right place for multitasking?

A graphic on the front page of USA Today shows that most people believe it is. The newspaper reports on a survey by Nationwide Mutual Insurance showing that 72 percent of drivers say they do other things while driving, like using a cell phone, eating or drinking.

Nearly 80 percent of people 18 to 44 say they multitask in the car. The numbers are slightly lower for the young and old. About 60 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds admit to multitasking, while 65 percent of adults 45 to 61 say they do it. Read more…

How fast do you drive? (Stuart Isett for The New York Times)

When it comes to speeding, many American motorists don’t worry about safety. They just worry about getting caught.

Those are the findings by researchers from Purdue University who surveyed nearly 1,000 motorists about speed limits and driving habits. They found that many drivers are cynical about the safety benefits of driving within speed limits, and many think they can drive safely while speeding as long as they won’t get caught, according to the report in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour.

“So the faster you think you can go before getting a ticket, the more likely you are to think safety’s not compromised at higher speeds,” said Fred Mannering, a professor of civil engineering at Purdue, in a press release. “For whatever reason, respect for speed limits seems to have deteriorated.” Read more…

Most teen drivers fasten their seat belts when they get behind the wheel. But troubling new data show that teen passengers are far less likely to buckle up.

The finding, to be published in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, shows a significant gap in public education efforts to reduce teen driving deaths. While many new state laws have resulted in extra limits for teen drivers, little attention has been paid to the teens in the car who aren’t behind the wheel.

Motor-vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among adolescents in the United States, accounting for nearly 5,000 fatalities and over 400,000 injuries annually among teens 16 and older. The crash rate for teen drivers is four times higher than for older drivers.

But studies show that it’s more than just teen drivers who are at risk — 40 percent of teen motor-vehicle deaths involve passengers. Researchers from Meharry Medical College in Nashville analyzed data from national Youth Risk Behavior surveys collected in 2001 and 2003 from 12,731 black, white and Hispanic high school students aged 16 years and older.

Overall, 59 percent of students always used seat belts when driving, but only 42 percent always buckled up as passengers, the researchers found. Only about one out of three students said they always wore seat belts whether driving or riding as a passenger.

There were important differences by gender, race and even the grades teens get on their report cards, but in all categories, passenger use of seat belts ranged from 10 to 21 percentage points lower than for drivers.

Among girls, 67 percent wore seat belts while driving, but the number dropped to 46 percent when girls moved out of the driver seat. For boys, 52 percent buckled up as drivers, but the number dropped to 38 percent in the passenger seat.

Blacks were the least likely to buckle up in the passenger seat, with only 37 percent reporting seat-belt use, compared to about 43 percent by Hispanics and whites.

Students who made A’s and B’s in school were more likely to buckle passenger belts than C students, but there was still a tremendous difference in seat-belt use compared to drivers. For instance, about 70 percent of student drivers who were A students wore seat belts, but just 50 percent of A students who were passengers buckled up.

Teenagers have the highest car crash and fatality rates of any demographic group, partly because they woefully underestimate driving risks. Injury prevention programs can change their perspective, a new study shows — at least for a while.

Toronto researchers studied 262 high school students participating in a one-day injury prevention program sponsored by their school and a local hospital. In addition to lectures about safety, the program included a tour of an intensive care unit, where students met young persons who had suffered a mild traumatic brain or a spinal cord injury.

A control group of teens were quizzed about driving safety before the talk, while others completed questionnaires about a week or a month afterward.

Their answers were troubling. The study found teens consistently underestimate driving risks and believe car and highway design are more likely than human error to cause a crash. The teens saw young age and agility as an advantage, helping them to better cope with poor driving conditions compared to more experienced drivers. Teens also believed that medical [trauma?] care, particularly in young people, is almost always effective. Read more…

(Credit: Kevin Moloney for The New York Times)

Every year, more than 2.7 million people are injured in car accidents, and 44,000 of them die, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Given that accidents, in general, are the leading cause of death for people under 45, we should all be paying more attention to the road and the cars around us. I’d also recommend a visit to the TierneyLab blog today, where my colleague John Tierney has put together an excellent “Traffic Quiz’” to test your traffic knowledge.

Full disclosure, I scored a “back-to-driving-school” 2 out of 10.

And to read more about traffic safety, check out these other posts on the safest places to drive, a troubling rise in golf cart injuries, and how to double-check car safety ratings online.

(Credit: Kevin Moloney for The New York Times)

The July Fourth weekend is often one of the deadliest in terms of car accidents, but some towns are safer than others. A new report compiled by insurance giant Allstate has ranked the car safety of various towns compared to national accident rates.

The average driver in the United States has a collision every 10 years. But the average driver in Sioux Falls, S.D., experiences a car accident every 14.6 years. That means a Sioux Falls motorist is 32 percent less likely to have an accident than the national average. Drivers in Fort Collins, Colo., rank second, reporting collisions every 13.4 years.

For the past four years, Allstate actuaries have analyzed the company’s claim data to determine the likelihood drivers in America’s 200 largest cities will experience a vehicle collision compared to the national average. Read more…

Safety ratings vary based on make, model year and Web site. (Charlie Riedel/Associated Press)

With my old station wagon headed to the 125,000 mile mark, I am in the market for a new car for the first time in more than seven years.

I had recently read about a car model that had ranked particularly high in crash testing, so ventured to a dealership to check it out. I liked the car, but didn’t like the sticker price on the 2008 model. I found a 2003 model with surprisingly low mileage. It was so affordable I almost bought it on the spot. But I opted instead to think about it over the weekend.

I’m glad I did. Read more…

A teen leaves a trail of upended pylons while navigating Toyota’s challenging “distraction” course.

What does it feel like to slam on your anti-lock brakes? What happens if you drive too fast on a slippery road? How do distractions like loud music affect your driving?

While driver’s education classes teach teens how to operate a vehicle, most of us don’t learn much about emergency driving conditions until we actually face an emergency. But a free advanced driving skills course offered by Toyota gives kids and parents a chance to experience real-world driving situations on a closed course. Participants maneuver through pylons, slam on brakes and speed around corners, all under the supervision of professional drivers. Read more…

Driving with a cellphone. (Daniel Hulshizer/Associated Press)

New Jersey recently strengthened a law banning cellphone use while driving, and police there reportedly are already handing out tickets. I drive a lot in New Jersey and wasn’t aware of the law change until a friend pointed it out to me.

Today, the popular blog BoingBoing provides a helpful link for keeping track of the various cellphone driving laws. The link takes you to the Cellular-News site, which offers a list of cellphone driving laws by country. Scroll down to see the breakdown by state.

Another good reference I just found is provided by the Governors Highway Safety Association. I like this site because in addition to information about cellphone rules, you can click on your state and get more specific information about the driving laws there.

Obviously, the best solution is to just not talk on the cellphone while you’re driving, no matter what state you are in. Drivers chatting on cellphones are four times more likely to be involved in crashes that cause serious injury, the British Medical Journal reported in 2005.

(Credit: Ted S. Warren/Associated Press)

Talking on the cellphone while driving isn’t just a safety risk. It also slows down traffic.

Motorists talking on the phone drive about two miles per hour more slowly than people who aren’t on the phone, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Utah. And while hands-free devices often are touted as safer alternatives, the scientists found that people using them also putter along, which suggests that it’s the talking, not the cellphone, that distracts the brain.

While a few miles per hour may not sound like much, as many as one in 10 drivers on the road is talking on the phone, says University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer, who coauthored the research. Slower cellphone drivers may be increasing overall commuting times by 5 percent to 10 percent, he calculates, and talking on the phone may increase each daily commuter’s travel time by 20 hours a year. Read more…

Marc Hawkins with daughter Melinda as she prepares to practice driving recently in Phoenix. (Jeff Topping for The New York Times)

Parents of teen drivers may be shopping for safer cars, but research studies show that parents can help their kids become safer drivers in any car. Read more…