The Top 5 Distracted Driving Behaviors That Could Lead To A Connecticut Auto Accident

September 24, 2020
Published by

The state of our world is that we get easily distracted.  A ding goes off on our cell phone, an alarm sounds on smart speaker, and we jump to it to find out who or what is trying to get our attention now.  Of course these distractions don’t go away when we’re behind the wheel.  In fact, distracted driving has steadily increased as a factor in New Haven auto accidents in the last few decades.

The question is then, what distractions are the worst in the car.  The answer may surprise you.  According to a report done by Erie Insurance nearly 1 in 10 fatalities on the roads were caused by distracted driving.  So what is distracting us so much when we are driving.  If you guessed, cellphones, you’d be wrong.  Yes cellphones get all of the headlines, but believe it or not being “lost in thought” or daydreaming was the leading cause of distracted driving fatalities by a mile.  Nearly 61% of all fatalities attributed to distracted driving were caused by people who were drifting off thinking about something other then driving.  This incredible statistic shows that while cellphone use in the car can be dangerous and should be avoided at all costs, the most important thing for drivers to handle is their focus on the road.  Here are the top 5 things that caused distracted driving fatalities between 2013 and 2018.

  1. Daydreaming (61%)
  2. Cellphone use – including texting (14%)
  3. An event or person outside of the vehicle (6%)
  4. Other people inside the car (5%)
  5. Reaching for a device that was brought into the car from the outside such as navigation or headphones (2%)

Given all of the attention that distracted driving gets in the news which is mainly centered around cellphone use, you may think that cellphone use and it’s relation to New Haven auto accident fatalities is on the rise, but according to this study this list of distractions has remained virtually the same from the previous five year report (2007 – 2012.)

If you or a loved one were injured in an accident, you may need an attorney to review your case.  Contact our office and one of our attorneys will discuss the particulars of your case.