Texting While Driving Up 40%

Text-messaging while driving may be against the law, but that hasn't stopped New Jerseyans from thumbing it on the road, according to a poll released today. A Fairleigh Dickinson-PublicMind poll on driving habits found the number of motorists who admit to texting while driving is up 40 percent from a year ago. The poll, co-sponsored by the New Jersey Division of Highway Safety, found one out of five drivers has sent a text while operating a vehicle. However, the poll indicates use of cell phones while driving has leveled off. About one out of five drivers uses a hand-held cell phone regularly. The poll of 951 New Jerseyans who report driving regularly was taken April 28 through June 1 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. AP