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UC San Diego Survey Finds 60 Percent Of Seniors Use Cell Phones While Driving

A driver looks at their phone as they make their way through traffic in Dallas, Monday, March 6, 2017
Associated Press
A driver looks at their phone as they make their way through traffic in Dallas, Monday, March 6, 2017
UC San Diego Survey Finds 60 Percent Of Seniors Use Cell Phones While Driving
A new survey finds young people are not the only ones who drive while talking on the phone.

Experts say driving while on the phone is dangerous at any age.

Someone forgot to tell seniors. A new survey from the UC San Diego School of Medicine reveals 60 percent of seniors talk on the phone while driving.

Researchers surveyed 397 adults age 65 and older — 82 percent of them say they owned a cell phone.

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Dr. Linda Hill, professor of family medicine and leader of UC San Diego's Training, Research and Education for Driving Safety (TREDS) program, said the survey had some other disturbing findings.

“People who thought that they were very good at driving while on the phone were most likely to do it," she said. "And I consider that a skewed sense of their abilities, because what we know from the data is nobody does a good job of that.”

Hill says driving while using a hands free or a hand-held phone is equally dangerous. It increases the risk of crashes four-fold.