The Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham, England studied the effect of listening to sports radio on driving habits. UPI.com reports ‘Radio Sports can Distract Drivers‘:
Reaction times were slowed by up to 20 percent when drivers were listening to sports, adding nearly 20 feet of additional stopping time for a car traveling 70 mph, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday. “To put this into context, this increase in distance traveled is 10 per cent further than the additional stopping distance when driving with a blood alcohol level at the U.K. legal limit,” the report read. The researchers said incidents involving hard braking nearly doubled when drivers were listening to sports. “This suggests that the motorists were not paying enough attention to the road and had to make [a] late decision to respond to the conditions and drivers on the road around them,” the researchers wrote.
