Features
11 Apr 19

Phone behind wheel more dangerous than alcohol

What’s more dangerous on the road than a drunk driver? A driver who’s on the phone. And that’s official: a recent U.S. study shows that distracted driving has now overtaken driving under the influence as America’s top roadway threat.

Distracted driving – often linked to phoning or texting behind the wheel – is now the number one threat to road safety in the U.S., more dangerous and deadly than even drunk driving. 

160 billion miles
That astonishing result, delivered by safety data analytics specialists Zendrive’s third annual ‘Distracted Driving Study’ is due to the rapid increase of distracted driving. 

Analysing over 160 billion miles of data, Zendrive has concluded that drivers are no less than 10% more distracted behind the wheel today than they were a year ago. 

Phone addicts
And ‘phone addicts’ – defined as people who use their phone 10% or more of the time they’re driving – have doubled in number, replacing drunk drivers as the main threat on America’s roads. 

Shockingly, phone addicts spend 28% of their driving time actively ignoring the road. Unfortunately, phone addicts are more often on the road than the average driver: 1.5 times more than the general driving population, in fact. 

“Pretty safe”
A survey accompanying the findings shows that 85% of drivers recognise distraction as a major problem – but mainly in other drivers. While nearly half (47%) admitted using their phones 10 % or more of the time while driving (making them ‘phone addicts’), no less than 90% of those surveyed said they were ‘safe drivers’. 

That figure increased further for the group of ‘phone addicts’, of whom 93% described themselves as “pretty safe” or “extremely safe” drivers.
 

Authored by: Frank Jacobs