According to a survey, one in three American teenagers write behind the wheel

(Reuters Health) – According to a new poll, one in three teens in the American text driving. And the number may be higher in states where teens start driving younger.

Researchers interviewed 101,397 adolescents aged 14 and over from 35 states who had driven a vehicle in the last 30 days. All states except one had banned text messaging for drivers under 21 years old. Yet 38% of teens reported having texted at least once.

The results argue for stricter enforcement of mobile driving laws, but are also a warning to parents, Dr Motao Zhu, lead author of the study, told Reuters Health.

"We're seeing a huge problem … texting while driving is severely underused, so we do not see a lot of tickets for texting," said Zhu, who is a principal investigator at the Columbus Research Center, Ohio.

Text-to-driving rates varied from state to state, from 26% in Maryland to 64% in South Dakota, reports Zhu's team in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

The practice was more common in states where children could obtain younger learner's licenses. The five states where more than 50% of teenage drivers reported texting while driving – Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming – issued apprenticeship permits at 15 years of age or younger.

More than one in five 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds reported driving before being eligible for an apprenticeship permit, and one in six of those drivers had texted while driving without a license.

"Teens start driving, plus they start sending SMS while driving," Zhu said.

The texting rate at the wheel doubled between ages 15 and 16 and continued to increase until the age of 17 and beyond, according to the study's authors. They note that white teens were more likely to write while driving than students of all other races. Young drivers who were wearing seatbelts were less likely to write while driving.

A separate study recently revealed that teenagers drive dangerously once their license allows them to hit the road without an adult in the car, even if they are cautious when they learn to drive. (Reut.rs/2NZxegN)

"Study after study has shown that texting while driving remains an extremely common behavior among teens and other age groups despite all the attention and laws that have been put in place" said Dr. Kit Delgado, emergency physician Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

Delgado, who was not involved in the new research, told Reuters Health by e-mail that interventions are needed beyond the education that drivers receive before obtaining their license and laws prohibiting the use of the phone.

The data from the study were taken from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey System of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The association between age and sending SMS while driving highlights the need for sustained attention throughout adolescence, said the authors. To help solve the problem, they advocate for a positive parenting model, clear communication of rules for the use of embedded mobile phones, and increased monitoring of newly licensed teen drivers.

New approaches are also needed, say the researchers. For example, they suggest that "social marketing techniques aimed at correcting teenagers' misperceptions, such as the belief that their friends more often engage in distracted driving behaviors" might be helpful, as well as sending SMS messages while driving and blocking technologies of embedded mobile phones.

The authors note that among the limitations of the study, the survey focuses specifically on texting and e-mail and not on the other ways teenagers use phones while driving.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2McudIg Journal of Adolescent Health, online August 20, 2018.