Like a good newsmaker, State Farm is there, reliably issuing headline-ready press releases such as William Shatner Saves the World From Exploding Turkeys ("An accident with a turkey fryer several years ago made him more than just a hot celebrity. He was a man on fire, literally, and he doesn't want it to happen to you!"), a companion to Dad, the Burgers are Burning . . . and so is the House!, which urged caution during National Grilling Month. It's no surprise, then, that State Farm got some traction with a survey on smartphone use behind the wheel, ranging from a front-page story in USA Today to a "news alert" from Rockford, Illinois's WREX-TV, which revealed the following: "Survey Shows More Drivers Using Phones Behind the Wheel."
This may have been followed up with, "Sun Expected to Rise in East, Set in West," because after all, WREX is "Rockford's News Leader."
Since there were some 250 million smartphones sold in the third quarter of 2013 alone, up 46 percent from the same period in 2012, it would be logical to assume owners are using them—behind the wheel, and elsewhere.
Look closer at State Farm's annual distracted driving survey—at least as anticipated as State Farm's annual worst-state-for-dog-bites survey (California again) and car-hits-deer collisions (West Virginia again)—and there are some newsworthy nuggets. Such as:
- Rather than texting, the fastest-growing smartphone-on-the-road danger may be simple surfing: One in four drivers, State Farm said, admit to going online while going down the road, up 11 percent from 2009.
- Why the increase? According to WCPO-TV, which doesn't claim to be Cincinnati's New Leader, but probably is, says "Distracted Driving Isn't Just for Kids Anymore." Smartphone ownership among 40- to 49-year-olds grew from 47 percent in 2011, to 82 percent this year; among those 50 to 64, the percentage climbed from 44 percent to 64 percent.
- Of those aged 65 and up, 39 percent have smartphones, compared to 23 percent in 2011. The number could be higher because it is conceivable that a certain percentage of those over 65 have a smartphone, but forgot.
The presumption here, then, is that all younger people already had smartphones, and were consequently surfing while driving anyway, so the increase must be because older people now have smartphones, and actually are using them.
- Feature: The Car and Driver Tech 50
- Feature: Texting While Driving: How Dangerous is it?
- Feature: Driving In a Fake Swedish Town
Few of the news outlets reporting on the situation offered much of a solution, not even WHAM-TV, which may or may not be Rochester, New York's news leader. The State Farm survey did, however, note that 44 percent of the respondents were "extremely likely" to support technology that would prevent texting or emailing on a mobile phone while driving, which could include snipers or wrapping the passenger compartment in tin foil.
State Farm also asked the 1000 respondents to rate how distracting they found certain things or tasks or relatives: 34 percent found talking on a handheld phone to be "very distracting," while 73 percent found driving with a pet in one's lap to be "very" or "somewhat distracting." Sending a text while driving is "very distracting" to 76 percent, but only 62 percent found reading a text to be "very distracting." Using simple math, we can extrapolate that 149 percent would find sending a text while you had a pet in your lap "very, very distracting."
Meanwhile, let's not overlook State Farm's annual survey of the worst states for hail damage: Texas again.
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com
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