In-vehicle device acquisition and usage in personal vehicles : commercial versus non-commercial driver's license holders

A survey was administered to 1,524 Virginia Tech faculty, staff, and students and Blacksburg Transit drivers in an effort to differentiate between commercial driver's license holders (72 of the respondents) and "regular" (i.e., non-commercial) drivers in terms of their ownership and personal in-vehicle usage of handheld devices (e.g., cell phones and MP3 players). Results indicated that discrepancies exist between these two groups for some devices and usage. For instance, almost 35% of commercial drivers reported that they "never" text while driving their personal vehicles compared with only 4% of the non-commercial drivers.