On the day that authorities in California confirmed an engineer was text messaging just before last week's deadly train crash, a British report warned that sending text messages while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk or high on marijuana.
A Metrolink commuter train ran into a freight train in Southern California last week, killing 25 people. California officials Thursday issued an emergency order banning the use of mobile phones or electronic devices while operating a train.
Research by the Transport Research Laboratory suggests texting while driving drastically reduces an operator's reaction time. Using a simulator for teenaged and young adult drivers, the study found that reaction time slowed by as much as 35 percent when operators were reading or writing text messages on their cell phones.
As a comparison, reaction time was reduced only 21 percent for those who had smoked marijuana and was down only 12 percent for drivers at the legal alcohol limit.
The study found that texting reduced a driver's ability to steer the vehicle by 91 percent. Driving high on marijuana reduced it only 35 percent. The test also found that drivers in the simulators who were busy texting were less able to maintain safe distances from other cars in traffic.
