While 2,600 people die each year as a result of traffic accidents involving drivers talking on a mobile phone, Harvard researchers found that the costs of such traffic accidents equal the value drivers perceive the technology gives them, according to CBS News.
The researchers calculated that mobile phones caused traffic accidents with associated costs of $43 billion per year in medical bills, loss of life and other costs, CBS News reports. Drivers told the researchers that the phones add to drivers' security, make it easier to call for help quickly and increase productivity.
Researchers tell CBS News that it is still difficult to draw conclusions because data are scarce on mobile phone related traffic accidents.
"What I found particularly interesting is how much debate and how much public concern there's been and how little good data we actually have," a Harvard researcher says.
The Harvard research used current usage figures to update a study released in 1997. The updated study found that a mobile-phone user has about 13 chances in 1 million of dying in a traffic accident while on a phone call.
Other drivers and pedestrians have about four chances in 1 million of dying in an accident caused by someone who's using a mobile phone while driving. By contrast, a person's chances of being killed by a drunken driver are 18 in a million, CBS News reports.
New York has banned handheld mobile phone use while driving, according to CBS News. Six other states have enacted regulation on mobile-phone use.
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