Dangers Caused By Truck Drivers Who Text While Driving.

Texting while driving is now illegal in Tennessee, and a study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute reaffirms why the law is necessary.

For truck drivers, the risk of a crash or near-crash event increases by a 23.2 times as compared with non-distracted driving.

Read the entire study here.

UPDATE:  here is a story on the study in The Washington Post:   An excerpt:

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration awarded a $300,000 contract to Virginia Tech to do the study. Trucks were fitted with video cameras that captured the drivers’ faces in the six seconds leading up to and during a crash or a near miss. The video showed texting to be an extremely high-risk behavior, mainly because it is associated with drivers taking their eyes off the road.

"In 4.6 out of the six seconds, they weren’t looking at the road. They were looking at the device," said Rich Hanowski, director of the institute’s Center for Truck and Bus Safety. "Anything over two seconds is dangerous."