According to a study by Zendrive, a road safety data analytics firm that is based in San Francisco, motorists in San Jose have been using their phones for about 8.2 percent of their driving time in 2019. This is a seven percent increase from last year, and it is greater than San Francisco and Oakland’s combined results of drivers being distracted by their phones, which is 7.8 percent of driving time for the combined cities. Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose were actually around the middle of the pack among the 19 U.S. cities Zendrive researchers studied. The report stated the following,
The distracted driving epidemic, aka ‘this generation’s drunk driving,’ is increasing along with the rates of collisions and pedestrian deaths. This coincides with the rise of ‘Phone Addicts’ — a new class of drivers so obsessed with their phones, they don’t notice or care that they’re driving distracted.
Which cities took the top two spots? That distinction goes to Houston and Dallas, where motorists spend over nine percent of their driving time using their phones. Seattle and Portland were the lowest cities on the list with motorists spending a little bit over seven percent of their time on their phones. Zendrive’s researchers used smartphone sensors to gather data on the driver behavior of 1.8 million motorists on more than 4.5 billion road miles from November 2018 through January. This study of distracted driving will hopefully lead to more people spending less time on their phones while driving.
