The nationwide Zen Drive study has most recently been completed, looking at the experiences of more than 2.3 million anonymous drivers over a three-month period. Drivers were grouped into cluster profiles over the first two weeks of the study and then their driving behavior was analyzed over the course of 5.6 billion miles. It was determined that distracted driving accidents are most likely to be caused by people who are addicted to their phones, people who are aggressive drivers and those who regularly speak.
The data looked at in the study include the percentage of time speeding, the percentage of time spent on the phone, the percentage of hours driven at night, the percentage of miles driven on highways, aggressive acceleration events and hard barking for every 100 miles of driving and the percentage of miles driven on the weekend in addition to the trip duration.
The relative risk for each driver persona was then calculated by looking at the total number of collisions based on the number of drivers. Six driver personas emerged out of this study and it was determined that phone addicts are the most dangerous in terms of distracted driving events. Given that more than 3,400 fatalities occurred across the United States in 2016 directly associated with distracted driving accidents, many legislators are unsure of the next steps to prevent many more of these serious problems.
Distracted driving accidents can always be prevented by avoiding the dangerous behavior in the first place and despite the fact that many states across the country already have laws on the books about how to avoid these devastating accidents, the problems still persist. Consulting with an experienced injury attorney is important if you have already been involved in an accident.