A study of more than 40,000 vehicles has found that 4 wheel drive car drivers were almost four times more likely than car drivers to be using a mobile phone, and 26 per cent more likely not to wear a seatbelt. Lesley Walker, a research associate with Imperial College London's primary care and social medicine departement said "breaking one law was significantly associated with increased likelihood of breaking the other".

The findings also support the theory of risk compensation, which predicts that drivers of four wheel drive vehicles feel safer and therefore take more risks when driving. "Although 4WD vehicles are safer in a crash, their owners may be placing themselves and other road users at increased risk of injury," she said. "They take the risk because they are higher up, they feel they can see better … but the person in a car or the pedestrian on the road has a much worse outcome."

Previous studies from the US, Britain and Australia have shown that using a mobile phone while driving is associated with a fourfold increase in the risk of having an accident. That means drivers of four-wheel-drives are 16 times more likely to have an accident than other drivers because they are four times more likely to use a mobile while driving, she said.

click here for the press release from the British Medical Journal