Composing, sending, or reading text messages while operating a motor vehicle has long been regarded as the most common driver distraction, causing over 1 million accidents on U.S. roadways per year. But nowadays, when smartphones offer seemingly endless possibilities for all kinds of activities that people can engage in, a lot of people do much more than texting while driving. A new survey that was recently released reveals that activities that people do while sitting behind the wheel go way beyond texting, and mainly include going on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or some other social media network.
AT&T has conducted asurvey to find out what the most common activities not related to driving are, and discovered that almost 40% of drivers who own a smartphone use social media while behind the wheel. Researchers polled 2,067 smartphone owners who drive on a daily basis in a telephone survey, with 27% of drivers between the ages of 16 and 65 who admitted to using social media sites saying that they use Facebook, while 14 percent of them admitted to using Twitter. What’s even more concerning, a whopping 30 percent of those who use Twitter while driving say that they do it all the time.
Aside from Facebook and Twitter, the survey finds that platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are being widely used by drivers. According to the report, over 10 percent of the people surveyed access their profiles on one of these social media networks, or engage in video chatting while driving.
Taking selfies, the social epidemic that has been sweeping the world for a couple of years now, is also among the activities that people do while driving, with 17% of the respondents in the AT&T survey admitting to doing it.
However, while accessing social media sites has become an increasingly popular activity for drivers, texting remains to be the leading driving distraction. Composing, sending or reading a text message was cited as a behind-the-wheel activity by 61% of those surveyed, suggesting that texting and driving bans have done little to deter people from this risky driving behavior.
In addition to revealing the leading causes of driving distraction, this survey yielded a few more interesting findings that highlight some of the factors behind these dangerous driving behaviors. The report states that 22% of those who access social networks do it because they are addicted to it, which seems to be one of the latest consequences of frequent cell phone use.
Finally, with 27% of those who admitted to shooting videos while driving, responded that they feel they can do it safely, suggesting that more campaigns aimed at increasing public awareness of the dangers of using a cell phone while behind the wheel are necessary in order to curb distracted driving and improve traffic safety.