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Study Finds Cellphones and Driving in Dangerous Committed Relationship

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Driving habits of humans have changed over time. It wasn’t that long ago that seatbelts weren’t an automatic accessory for a lot of drivers, and now, most (hopefully all) drivers wouldn’t even think about driving without securing the safety belt. The child safety seat continues to evolve, and the days of kids bouncing around untethered in the back seat are a thing left to a more dangerous driving past.

And, as impossible as it is to fathom, humans used to drive without cellphones. Paper maps were used as navigation tools and any phone conversations were saved for home or the office and music choices were limited to the available radio stations.


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But, in today’s world driving without a cellphone is much too rare an occurrence.

According to a study by Zendrive, a driver analytics company, “Americans use their phones nearly every single time they get behind the wheel.” The study by Zendrive collected and deciphered data from “3.1 million anonymized drivers, who took 570 million trips, covering 5.6 billion miles nationwide between December 2016 and 2017.”

What was their top find from this study?

“Drivers used their phones during 88 percent of the 570-million trips analyzed, or 88 out of 100 trips.”

That is a LOT of distracted driving on the road!

Zendrive also discovered through its study, that “during an hour-long trip, drivers spent an average of 3.5 minutes using their phones,” which is a bone-chilling reality because according to Zendrive, “taking your eyes off the road for two seconds increases your chances of collision by over 20-times.”


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Zendrive was also able to analyze driver habits by area.

According to Zendrive’s data, the top 10 most distracted states (starting with the worst offender) are: Vermont, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Missouri, and Massachusetts; the top 10 most distracted cities (starting with the worst offender) are: Los Angeles, Austin, Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Denver, New York, Burlington, and Portland.

Zendrive’s findings confirm what drivers already know but need to be constantly reminded of until it stops—drivers are way too glued to their cellphones, and it’s a driving habit that poses a danger to us all.

News Source: Zendrive