Distracted Driving: An Epidemic?

Next time you're driving and you take your hands off the steering wheel to reach for your coffee, or cell phone, or GPS unit, consider this: distracted driving-related crashes killed 5,474 people and injured another 448,000 across the United States in 2009. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report found that the proportion of overall traffic fatalities associated with driver distraction increased from 10 percent to 16 percent between 2005 and 2009, though the percentage remained unchanged between 2008 and 2009.