Be Careful Out There — April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month

April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Weekly Industry News did stories on distracted driving last week and is finishing the series this week.

Distracted driving has been a growing concern for a decade or more. In spite of laws prohibiting talking on smartphones without a hands-free system, and laws banning texting, the problem seems to be getting worse.

According to research by Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), in February of this year the average amount of time people drove distracted was 1 minute and 38 seconds of every hour they drive.

CMT VP Ryan McMahon said that’s up 30% from February of 2020.

“Over the past two years, distracted driving has been like a pandemic within a pandemic, increasing at alarming rates and changing drivers’ behaviors as the pandemic wears on,” McMahon said. “As more drivers hit the nation’s roads, this intensified distraction will put even more people at risk.”

Two years after putting a hands-free law into place, most of the 24 states that have the law saw a 15% drop in distracted driving crashes. Another 21 are looking at hands-free legislation.