Harvard Researchers address cell phone usage

WASHINGTON -- Researchers say increased cell phone use has led to more crashes caused by drivers on the phone, but the value people place on being able to call from the road roughly equals the accidents' cost.\nOpponents of banning cell phone usage by drivers have cited studies that showed the benefit of car calls outweighed the toll from such accidents -- medical bills and property damage, for example.\nHarvard researchers, drawing on previous research involving cell phones and government figures for auto accidents, says in a study there is a growing public health risk from the reliance on cell phones in cars. The number of cell phone subscribers has grown from 94 million in 2000 to more than 128 million.\nThe figure was reached using current cell phone usage estimates to update a 1997 study. That study looked at phone records of Canadian drivers involved in crashes to see if they were making calls at the time.\n"It's sort of assumptions built on assumptions," said Kimberly Kuo, spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. \nThe Harvard researchers also updated previous studies on the economic costs associated with accidents caused by cell phones, such as medical bills and loss of life. The costs added up to $43 billion -- about the same as the researchers arrived at for the value that cell phone owners put on their phones.\nCell phone owners cited benefits such as security and peace of mind for instant communication, increased productivity, privacy and quicker crime and accident reporting.\nThe Harvard study found that a cell phone user has about a 13 chances in 1 million of being killed in an accident while making a call; that compares with 49 in 1 million for someone driving without a seat belt.\nOther drivers and pedestrians have about four chances in 1 million of dying in an accident caused by a cell phone user, according to the study. Their chance of being killed by a drunken driver is more than four times as high -- 18 in a million.\nFor more information visit www.hcra.harvard.edu.