Improving Auto Safety at Construction Sites.

• Position: WORK ZONE CRASHES

A vehicle traveling at 55 mph covers a distance greater than a football field in five seconds. With the average text taking approximately five seconds to read, that is at least a football field's worth of driver inattention.

Researchers at the University of Missouri, Columbia, say drivers not paying attention--such as answering a phone call or a text message, or being distracted by a passenger--for any length of time are 29 times more likely to be involved in a collision or near collision in a highway work zone, where a fatality occurs nationwide every 5.4 minutes.

"Prior to our study, researchers analyzed data by looking at one checkbox among 70 to 80 different fields on a police officer's crash report to see if the crash occurred inside a work zone," says Praveen Edara, professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Unfortunately, crash reports do not include detailed information about driver behavior prior to a crash.

"What's unique about our research project is that we used naturalistic driving study data that provides information about how driver, vehicle, roadway, and environmental factors...