Studies have indicated smokers are distracted an average of 12 seconds while fumbling around with a cigarette compared to only 10 seconds for the distraction caused by cell phone use! Cigarettes while driving are more dangerous than cell phones. For real. If you drop a cell phone on your lap, you do not panic. Drop a lit cigarette on your lap, and it becomes quite an important task to find that smoke fast! (A lit cigarette is burning at 1100 degrees F.) Answers.com claims 76% of car accidents are caused by smoking. British researchers say 50% of smokers have caused or almost caused an accident because of smoking (Daily Record, October 15, 2007).