A University of Utah study concludes that young drivers talking on cell phones drive like the elderly; moving and reacting slowly with increasing risk of accidents.

Published in this recent journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the study found that 18-25 year olds talking on phones responded just as slowly as 65-74 year olds without phones when reacting to brake lights from vehicles ahead.

"If you put a 20 year old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone. It’s like instantly aging a large number of drivers," says David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the study.

In the simulator, each participant drove four 10-mile freeway trips lasting about 10 minutes each, talking on a cell phone with a research assistant during half the trip and driving without talking the other half. Only handsfree phones were used.

The study found that drivers, regardless of age, were 18 percent slower at hitting their brakes than those who weren't talking, and took 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked. In addition, "there was also a twofold increase in the number of rear-end collisions when drivers were conversing on cell phones," the study says.