Re: “Crashes rise along with speed limit on I-295 north of Portland” (Dec. 1):

Neither the piece nor the comments it has generated touch upon another important element in the rising number of car crashes – distracted driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has an entire website dedicated to the topic (distraction.gov).

Smartphone ownership is growing. According to data provided by State Farm Insurance Co., in 2011 about 52 percent of drivers reported owning a smartphone. By 2014, that number had grown to 80 percent.

NHTSA data reveals that nationwide in 2014, some 3,179 people were killed and 431,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers who were texting, checking their GPS device, reading emails, watching – or taking their own videos – or otherwise paying more attention to their smartphone than to the road ahead.

Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55 mph, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded, according to a study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

As cited in the Press Herald article, it has long been accepted that speed in itself is not the culprit, as long as all the vehicles are moving at the same speed. (Otherwise, Germany’s no-speed-limit Autobahn would be a mountain of crumpled Mercedes.)

When I worked at the U.S. Department of Transportation, the safety experts at the NHTSA would sometimes invoke the traditional slogan “Speed kills.”

My counter was: “No, it doesn’t. Sudden deceleration kills.” Today, I would add, “So does social media.”

Chet Lunner

Cape Elizabeth

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