"Hands-Free Texting Is No Safer to Use While Driving"

"The Texas A&M Transportation Institute studied people driving a closed course under three conditions: while texting by hand, while texting by voice (using Siri for iPhone and Vlingo for Android), and without texting at all."

The results surprised me—and troubled me. Turns out it makes absolutely no difference whether you text hands-free or by voice. “Response times were significantly delayed no matter which texting method was used,” the study says. In each case, drivers who were texting took about twice as long to react as they did otherwise. Incredibly, they also spent less time watching the road, even when they were texting by voice."

It doesn't make intuitive sense. It seems as though texting by voice should be safer than looking at your phone. And to be sure, this was only a single study, involving only 43 subjects."

We already knew that hands-free phone conversations are just as dangerous as hands-on, and now we know the same thing about texting by voice. You shouldn't text at all while driving. Your teenagers shouldn't. I shouldn't."

Scientific American , MyFoxNY.com