Phone Addicts

Last year, more than 6,000 pedestrians lost their lives in accidents caused by distracted drivers. And the problem is getting worse by the day thanks to cell phone addicts.

According to the third annual Distracted Driving Study by Zendrive, on a national level, drivers are 10 percent more distracted this year than last year. “Phone Addicts” now replace drunk drivers as the ultimate threat on public roads, Zendrive claims.

The study found that “Phone Addicts” spend 28% of their time driving actively ignoring the road.

“Phone Addicts are glued to their phones, so they’re more distracted, more dangerous, and more likely to cause a crash,” the report said. “When comparing this year’s data to the 2018 report, we found that the number of ‘Phone Addicts’ doubled in the last year.”

• The findings revealed that phone addicts:
• Spend three times more drive time actively using their phones.
• Actively ignore the road 28% of the time they’re driving.
• Are on the road 1.5 times more than the general population.
• Are more of a public danger than drunk drivers.

To better understand what drives this behavior, Zendrive asked drivers to talk. The survey found that while people know distracted driving is a problem, they aren’t concerned enough to change their behavior. According to the survey:

• 85% of respondents acknowledged distracted driving is a problem;
• 90% claimed to be safe drivers; but
• 47% admitted to using phones 10% or more of the time while driving, classifying them as “Phone Addicts.”

“What we concluded from our survey data is that no one readily accepts they’re capable of putting others at serious risk. All of us want to believe we’re safe while on the road. But how safe are we really?” the report stated.

Overall, the study found that distracted driving went up in every state year over year. In each of the 19 major cities that Zendrive studied, driver phone use per hour increased by 5% to 10% across the board.

Across the 1.8 million people studied, Zendrive found that the general population averaged 1 minute, 48 seconds of phone use per hour of driving. However, “Phone Addicts” admitted that they use their phones for six minutes or more for every hour behind the wheel, the study said.

That’s almost double last year’s amount of distraction, where the study found habitual phone users spent an average of just three minutes, 30 seconds on their phones each hour.

To view the full study, visit zendrive.com.