You may find it shocking to learn that in a survey by State Farm, 57% of drivers admitted to talking on a hand-held cell phone while driving. 77% of drivers aged 18-29 admitted to the same offense.

As far as texting goes, amongst drivers aged 18-29, 69% admitted to texting while driving. Of the general population, 35% admitted to this, an increase from 31% in 2009.

But despite these high numbers, Americans don’t condone distracted driving. In fact, half of survey respondents supported imprisonment as an appropriate punishment for fatal cellphone related crashes. Three-fourths of participants strongly supported a ban on texting while driving.

Americans clearly overestimate their ability to stay focused while driving and talking on the phone or texting.

In 2013, there were over 3,000 fatalities as a result of distracted driving-related accidents.

“People recognize these things are dangerous, but they think that they themselves are good at it,” says Robert Rosenberg, an assistant professor of philosophy at the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

If Americans recognized their own distractibility and advocated against distracted driving, it would be a critical cultural shift that could prevent further distracted driving-related accidents. If you have been injured by a distracted driver, make sure that your rights are protected by hiring an experienced car accident lawyer.

Many people assume being a responsible driver means using hands-free technologies such as headsets and voice activated systems. But according to Strayer, author of a study on distracted driving for AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety, “There really is no difference between hand-held and hands-free.” Safety advocates are arguing that hands free communication devices still entail a degree of dangerous distractibility.

This is an emergent issue, as car companies have even begun to compete by luring customers with promises of greater, safer connectivity in their vehicles, including more cutting edge options for hands-free talking and texting.

Perhaps the greatest cultural shift of all would be curtailing our need to be continuously connected, especially while driving.

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Featured image provided by Jace

When you’re in a car accident it’s expected that you’ll give the police your driver’s license and insurance information, but if a new bill proposed in New Jersey passes, you could be asked to give them something else as well: your cell phone.

The reasoning behind this legislation? To help police determine if distracted driving was the cause of the accident, particularly as a result of talking or texting while driving. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states that police reports and eyewitness testimony aren’t all that effective in determining if distracted driving is a factor in accidents; the best way to determine this is to look at drivers’ call records and text messages.

This proposed legislation may make it easier to determine the cause of accidents, but the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey raises some serious concerns about its ramifications. Under the proposed bill, police officers would only be able to check your cell phone if they had reasonable cause to suspect you were using it at the time of the accident (and they’d have to give it back right away), but what would be considered “probable cause” in this situation? Since accidents can be caused by many things, including distractions that do not involve cell phones, the use of this legislation to check drivers’ cell phones would certainly be hotly contested by civil rights advocates and car accident lawyers alike.

The main issue at stake here is privacy. In the wake of the recent revelation that our phone calls and online activities are being monitored by the government, people are becoming more concerned with keeping their daily activities private. Since we use cell phones in all aspects of our lives, many people would be very resistant to allowing the police to look through personal texts or calls. To add further complication to the issue, what would happen if police were to come across potentially incriminating material in the phone? Would this information be legally admissible in court under the plain view doctrine, or would police only be able to address the time a phone call or text was sent?

While this kind of legislation could possibly help determine if distracted driving was involved in car accidents, it opens a whole new can of worms in terms of the legal issues it would create.

What do you think? A smart way to crackdown on distracted driving, or a violation of constitutional rights? Share your thoughts below!