Student motorcyclists' mobile phone use while driving in Vientiane, Laos.
To investigate mobile phone use while driving among student motorcyclists in Laos, we conducted a school-based questionnaire survey in central Vientiane in May 2014. Of the 883 high school students who reported to drive motorcycles at least once a week, 40% have ever used phones while driving motorcycles in both sexes. Those phone users had longer driving exposures than non-users, with about half engaging in phone use while driving at least 2 days a week and 70% engaging for 1 min or longer on an average day. They reported not just talking on the phone while driving but operating the phone such as dialling and text-messaging. In some instances, phone use was reportedly involved in their past crash experiences. To formulate a sound policy on this emerging distracting behaviour among motorcyclists, its contribution to the occurrence of overall crashes among motorcyclists should be investigated.
a Faculty of Postgraduate Studies , University of Health Sciences , Vientiane , Lao PDR.
Sysavanh
S
Phommachanh
b Department of Global Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba , Ibaraki , Japan.
Masao
M
Ichikawa
c Department of Emergency Medicine , Teikyo University School of Medicine , Tokyo , Japan.
Shinji
S
Nakahara
a Faculty of Postgraduate Studies , University of Health Sciences , Vientiane , Lao PDR.
Mayfong
M
Mayxay
d Department of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care, National Center for Global Health and Medicine , Tokyo , Japan.
Akio
A
Kimura
D000293:Adolescent; D000075782:Cell Phone Use; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007812:Laos; D008297:Male; D009049:Motorcycles; D013334:Students; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D060145:Text Messaging / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
Laos; distraction; mobile phones; motorcycles; students