Smartphone apps creating more distraction for young drivers

Recent survey findings from Ingenie, a UK car insurance brand for young drivers, have revealed that 58 per cent of 17-25 year old drivers agree that smartphone apps are causing young people to be more distracted at the wheel. The company commissioned the survey of 1,000 young drivers, conducted by One Poll, which has uncovered the extent of how smartphones and social media are distracting 17-25 year olds when behind the wheel.
April 30, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Recent survey findings from 5351 Ingenie, a UK car insurance brand for young drivers, have revealed that 58 per cent of 17-25 year old drivers agree that smartphone apps are causing young people to be more distracted at the wheel. The company commissioned the survey of 1,000 young drivers, conducted by One Poll, which has uncovered the extent of how smartphones and social media are distracting 17-25 year olds when behind the wheel.

The survey revealed:

  • Over 40% admitted to answering their phones while driving without a hands-free set
  • 44% said they had sent a text message, and 62% said they had read a message while they were driving
  • 1 in 6 male drivers under 25 has crashed due to mobile phone usage at the wheel
  • One third of under 25s who use Facebook on their phone admitted to using it whilst driving
  • 18% of under 25s who have ‘Draw Something’ on their phone have played the game whilst driving - 17% for Angry Birds
  • Hands-free kits encourage 53% more young drivers to make longer calls at the wheel (longer than five minutes)

The results collected from the survey suggest that the increasing range of apps and functionality available on mobile devices is contributing to young driver distraction - even mobile games, which take a high level of concentration are taking young people's attention away from the roads.

On the growing range of dangerous distractions created by smartphones, Ingenie founder and CEO Richard King said, "We're in the middle of a perfect storm, where the rapid growth of social media and mobile is creating a new breed of in-car distraction.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Technology and finance shapes up to make MaaS happen
    June 7, 2017
    The technology and finance aspects needed for Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to become widely adopted are taking shape as Geoff Hadwick and Colin Sowman hear. Sampo Hietanen, CEO of MaaS Global and ‘father’ of MaaS, started his address to ITS International’s recent MaaS Market conference in London by saying: “All of the problems that can be solved by a company or group of companies have already been solved, and now we are left with the big ones such as housing, transport and health. He called MaaS the “Netfli
    Read More
  • Preventing connected vehicles creating disconnected drivers
    November 12, 2015
    Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are evolving at a rapid pace – but drivers’ ability to cope with them is not and at some point the mismatch must be addressed. Probably the biggest challenge the transportation industry has ever faced.” That is how Dr Bryan Reimer of Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab describes the challenges posed by semi-autonomous vehicles.
    Read More
  • The art of road safety
    June 10, 2022
    Saving lives on the road surely can’t be as easy as painting the town red – and pink, green and yellow? Or purple and blue? Can it? Adam Hill has a brush with Bloomberg Philanthropies
    Read More
  • Men are more stressed than women when stuck in traffic
    April 23, 2012
    According to new research from TomTom, men's stress levels soar a staggering seven times higher than a woman's when stuck in heavy traffic. Psychologists tested volunteers for the rise in stress chemicals - Immunoglobulin A (IgA - an immune system marker) and alpha-amylase (a stress marker) - in their saliva when caught up in a traffic jam. The levels for women in the study increased by 8.7 per cent while stuck behind the wheel - but for men it shot up by a worrying 60 per cent in the same gridlock scenario
    Read More

Highlighted Content