Using a cell phone in a car can cause distracted driving and quadruples your risk of a car crash, especially for teenagers. 

Citing almost 3 dozen studies, the National Safety Council issued a white paper in April 2010 that concluded any form of cell phone use in a car is problematic. 

According to the Cell Phones and Driving: Research Update (December 2008) from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, two studies using epidemiological methods have reported that cell phone use while driving is associated with approximately a quadrupling of crash risk.

The AAA Study also reports that young drivers are overwhelmingly more likely than older people to text  while driving—nearly half of survey respondents aged 18 to 24 admit doing so, whereas fewer than 5% of drivers aged 45 and older texting while driving.

In D.C. Area Poll Confirms Worries About Distracted Driving, the Washington Post reported that forty percent of young adults text, e-mail or use the Web while in traffic, according to a poll conducted in the Washington, DC area, compared with 21 percent of those ages 30 to 64 and 3 percent of those 65 and older.   According to the National Safety Council, texting while driving contributes to more than an estimated 200,000 crashes each year.