Drive. Talk. Brake. Drive. Talk. Brake.

Do cellphones slow the commute? The Times' Karen Kaplan looks at the latest research:

Drive. Talk. Brake. Drive. Talk. Brake. Researchers at the University of Utah have found that motorists jabbering on cellphones drive more hesitantly than undistracted drivers and, as a result, are increasing everyone's average drive time by 5% to 10%. For someone with an hourlong commute each way, that translates into as much as 12 extra minutes behind the wheel each day, said psychologist David Strayer. Over the course of a year, the excess time in traffic could easily top 50 hours -- more than a typical week in the office. "On your commute home tonight, your commute will be slower because of people who are using their cellphones," said Strayer, whose findings will be presented Jan. 16 at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, part of the National Academies of Science. Strayer and his colleagues put 36 college students behind the wheel of a converted Ford Crown Victoria outfitted with special screens to simulate driving conditions on a 9.2-mile stretch of Interstate 15 near Salt Lake City.  Each student drove in low-, medium- and high-density traffic conditions while talking into a hands-free cellphone and again with the phone shut off. Previous studies of dialing while driving have focused on the hazards of mixing the two. Epidemiologists examining records of accidents have found that the risk of crashing is more than four times higher for drivers on cellphones than for ones who aren't. That's the equivalent of driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08%, high enough to qualify as too drunk to drive in California and most other states.