Relationship between use of mobile phone and road traffic accident amongst motorists in Zaria
Keywords:
Motorist, driving, mobile phoneAbstract
Objective: Car telephone use has increased against the background of rapid escalation in general mobile phone services and use. The study was designed to determine the relationship between the use of mobile phone while driving and the incidence of road traffic accident amongst motorists in Zaria.
Method: The study was carried out using cross-sectional descriptive survey design. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. The population of this study comprises of motorists from the three major parks in Zaria making a total of 544 motorists out of which 225 respondents were sampled using stratified random sampling method for the study.
Results: More than three quarters (87%) of the respondents use their mobile phones while driving. Majority (70%) of the respondents are aware of the possible hazards or risk associated with using mobile phones while driving. 72% of the motorists are unwilling to stop answering calls or use their mobile phones for the purpose of text messages while driving.
Conclusion: Laws should be implemented to ban drivers from using hand held mobile phones while driving and fines should be imposed on violators of the law. Increasing awareness on the hazards of mobile phone use while driving should be created especially in the media.
References
Richard Rau, Peter Schramm, Martin Arend(2008): "Meet Marty Cooper: The inventor of the mobile phone". Journal of Modern African Studies 46: 87–109
Jensen, B. S., Skov, M. B., & Thiruravichandran, N: Studying driver attention and behaviour for three configurations of GPS navigation in real traffic driving. In: CHI '10 Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems. (2010). ACM, New York, NY, USA.
World Health Organization(2011): Mobile phone use: A growing problem of driver distraction,
Michael, Jordan B: “Automobile Accidents Associated With Cell Phone Use: Can Cell Phone Service Providers and Manufacturers Be Held Liable Under a Theory of Negligence?” Richmond Journal of Law & Technology 2 (2005) .
Drews, F. A., Pasupathi, M., & Strayer, D. L: Passenger and cell-phone conversation during simulated driving. (2008) : Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied, 14, 392400.
Dragutinovic N, Twisk D: Use of mobile phones while driving - effects on road safety (2005). SWOV publication R-2005-12 7 SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research – Leidschendam, the Netherlands.
Lesch M.F, Hancock P A: Driving performance during concurrent cell phone use: are drivers aware of their performance decrements? Accident Analysis and Prevention, (2004). 36,471-480.
Hanowski Richard: Driver Distraction in Commercial Vehicle Operations. h t t p : / / w w w. f m c s a . d o t . g o v / f a c t s research/media/webinar-09-06-03transcript.pdf Accessed June 5, 2014.
Glassbrenner, D: Driver cellphone use in 2005overall results; traffic safety facts research note. (2005). Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Redelmeier D.A: Tibshirani R.J: Association between cellular-telephone calls and motor vehicle crashes. (2008). In: The New England Journal of Medicine, 336(7): 453-458.
Horrey WJ, Lesch MF, Garabet A: Assessing the awareness of performance decrements in distracted drivers. Accident Analysis and Prevention; (2008). 40(2): 675-68
Akande T. M and Ajao M.S: Awareness of Hazards and Use of GSM Mobile Phone among Non-Commercial Drivers in Ilorin, Nigeria.
(2007). Annals of African Medicine 5(4): 166169.
The Nigerian Federal Road Safety Commission: Road regular monitoring surveillance. Zaria, (2015).
Mc Cartt AT, Hellinga LA, Braitman K.A: Cell phones and driving: review of research. Traffic Injury Prevention (2002). 7:89-106
Ogunbodede E.F: Cell Phone Usage and Travel Behaviour in Ondo State, Nigeria. Journal of Mobile Communication (2010). 4(3): 68-7.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Research Journal of Health Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Research Journal of Health Sciences journal is a peer reviewed, Open Access journal. The Journal subscribed to terms and conditions of Open Access publication. Articles are distributed under the terms of Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/4.0). All articles are made freely accessible for everyone to read, download, copy and distribute as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
