By the numbers

In this installment of the Daily's "By the Numbers" feature, we take a look at Americans' and college students' ownership of cell phones - and attitudes towards driving while using them.



Americans who own cell phones: nearly 50%

College students with cell phones last spring: 78%

College students with cell phones 3 years ago: 34%



Cell phone users between 10 and 24 years old in 2000: 11 million

Projection of cell phone users of the same age by the end of 2004: 43 million



Cell phone owners who drive while talking on their phones "every day": 22.8%

Who do so "several times a week": 16.0%

Who do so "about once a week": 14.2%

Who "never" do so: 21.2%



People who think talking on a cell phone while driving is "very dangerous": 55.8%

Who think doing so is "somewhat dangerous": 36.3%

Who think doing so is "not too dangerous" or "not dangerous at all": 6.9%



People who think state governments should outlaw using a cell phone while driving: 61.6%

People who think state governments should not: 32.5%



People to whom such a ban would be a "major inconvenience": 9.7%

A "minor inconvenience": 22.1%

"Not an inconvenience at all": 67.6%



States that have enacted total "no cell phones while driving" bans: 1 (New York)

States that have enacted partial bans: 11 (including Massachusetts)



How much slower cell-phone drivers' reactions are than non-cell phone drivers: 18%



The statistics cited above come from C. Barnes's CNET Tech News article "Half of U.S. teens to own cell phones by 2004"; Harris Interactive; Student Monitor;

Mary Beth Marklein's Newsfactor.com article "Colleges Catch Cell-Phone Wave";

Strayer & Johnston's "Driven to distraction: Dual-task studies of simulated driving and conversing on a cellular phone" from Psychological Science; Strayer & Johnston's "Cell Phone Induced Failures of Visual Attention During Simulated Driving" from the Journal of Experimental Psychology; ABC News.com; The Gallup Organization: Brain; and Reuters' article "U.S. wireless use to nearly double by 2006."