“Concerning” statistics highlight the extent of distracted driving risk in the UK

A review of the most recent data from the DfT suggests that there could be over 50,000 instances of individuals driving while using a hand-held phone each day, along with half a million drivers not wearing seatbelts.

Seatbelts

The statistics, collected through images captured by Acusensus roadside technology, also revealed that 4.8% of vehicle passengers were observed not wearing a seatbelt.

Geoff Collins from Acusensus has performed an in-depth analysis of these figures. He states that, when extrapolated to account for the millions of journeys made daily, the numbers are “alarming”.

Mr. Collins added: “Drivers who don’t wear their seatbelt are likely to maintain this behavior for the entire journey.”

Mobile phones

“If observed mid-journey without a proper restraint, it is likely that this was the case for the entire trip. However, hand-held mobile phone use is typically not continuous, meaning it may occur multiple times during a single journey but not necessarily at the survey point.

“Because of this, it is potentially misleading to think that more seatbelt violations occur. It is more likely that the overall instances of distracted driving during any single journey are significantly higher than the 0.3% observed at any one specific point on the road during this survey.

“Based on the observed violation rates from the surveys, if extrapolated across the entire network, it is likely that cars would account for over 30,000 instances of illegal mobile phone use each day, with an additional 20,000 or more cases from vans. This is despite there being only a quarter as many vans on the road compared to cars.”