Texting & Driving — More Do it than You Think

Harvard researcher Thomaz Teodorovicz and his staff have come up with some disturbing statistics. They say 87% of those you see commuting to work routinely send and receive text messages while driving.

Those same drivers are also emailing. Some — 18% — will send emails and 9.5% of the 400 commuters surveyed, said they’re returning them.

By the way, the multi-taskers are not listening to texts and emails on audio. They’re reading them on phones and computers. Even more disturbing, those same commuters spend 4% of their commuting time video conferencing with colleagues and clients.

Study co-author Raffaella Sadun said the results are super surprising. "We were expecting to see some multitasking in the car, but honestly not to the extent reported in the survey," Sadun said. The researchers think even more people are doing that multi-tasking than will admit doing so.

Teodorovicz says if you’re an employer, you might want to worry.