At least a third of Delaware’s motorists admitted to using a hand-held cellphone while driving, according to a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling.
The survey screened a sample of 540 individuals, with 30% of the respondents admitting to using their cell phones while behind the wheel.
Between the end of 2012 and early 2013, Delaware police took measures to counter cell phone usage while driving by implementing a federally-funded campaign to discourage the act. The trial project involved three waves of increased enforcement, and a media campaign that warned drivers that if they had their phones in one hand, a ticket would be in the other.
“A motorist’s fear of being stopped for a violation will deter the behavior in the first place,” noted a January report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration that summarized the results of the project.
In the years since the project launched, however, the number of cell phone-related collisions in the state swelled.
According to the Delaware Office of Highway Safety, state police cited 165 distracted drivers for using their phones prior to a crash in 2014. The number was up 15% from the previous year’s number, and up 21% from 2012’s record.
There have been at least 127 cell phone-related crashes in Delaware so far in 2015.
Office of Highway Safety Director Jana Simpler remarked that these statistics likely do not pick up on all the cell phone usage-related collisions, since the offense can be difficult for an officer at a crash to prove.
“The officer is relying on the driver to be truthful,” she said. “I believe that many more crashes are related to hand-held cell phone use than the data suggests.”
A study by the American Automobile Association (AAA) suggested that hands-free cell phone technologies can cause collisions as well, since they “mentally distract drivers even if their eyes are on the road.”
“We are concerned that these new systems may invite driver distraction,” commented AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman Jim Lardear. “The reality is that mental distractions can affect driver attention far longer than they realize.”