Report: Car Accidents Increasing in Parallel with Smartphone Ownership
S. Himmelstein | September 24, 2018
Total accidents (blue), smartphone ownership (orange). Sources: Insurance Information Institute, National Safety Council, Pew Research, Motus LLC
It might come as no surprise that the increase in smartphone ownership in the growing U.S. mobile workforce has coincided with a parallel increase in accident rates. Research conducted by Motus, a vehicle management and reimbursement platform, shows that as smartphone ownership jumped from 55% in 2013 to 77% in 2017, the number of accidents escalated from 5.7 million to 6.4 million — an increase of 12.3%.
According to the 2018 Distracted Driving Report, mobile workers take 49% more trips behind the wheel than any other type of employee. When employees are involved in crashes, employers pay a high price in terms of medical costs, property damage, lost work days, crash-related legal expenses and lost productivity. Phone distraction is estimated to cost employers about $1,680 per grey fleet mobile worker.
While phone use during morning and evening commutes is common, phone use while driving is at its highest from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., when the mobile workforce is on the move. Americans drove a total of 107 billion phone-distracted miles in 2017, indicating that phone-related distraction is a growing problem beyond the mobile workforce.
It should be law that phone should be out of reach of a driver when the vehicle is moving, this includes hands free, any passengers should turn off their phones as well or better still a device that disrupts the signals within the vehicle when the ignition is turned on, and finally make penalties hurt, as much as relatives hurt when a loved one is killed by some moron on the phone when they plow into them.
Bazzer
In reply to #1
Don't blame the moron using the phone, blame the marketers and manufacturers of cars and cell phones who thrive on selling you their junk products and fancy advertising and cater for calls while driving. A brain washed person cannot be held responsible for his automatic actions. If you do, you have assumed that person is capable of common sense and thinking and common sense died a long time ago. Thought is simply outlawed and irresponsible. Read the rule book, the regulation, the company guidelines, the law. If you need to have a life with thinking involved you will be castigated and banished.
Someone of you who read this has the skill to do the following: Create a universal virus for cellphone users. It would turn off a phone traveling more than 5 mph except for calls to 911. Since the GPS and cell phone tower tracking software/firmware already has this written into it this is certainly possible. Propagate it through"social" media and cellphone generated email. Come on folks someone who can do this do it for the sake of us all.