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I don't think there's any data to support that. Smart phone penetration in the US has been above 75% for many years now, so you'd have to explain why there's a

I don't think there's any data to support that. Smart phone penetration in the US has been above 75% for many years now, so you'd have to explain why there's a jump in fatalities now but wasn't as smart phone penetration went from 0% to 75%. Secondly, this data should be controlled for miles driven. Otherwise a growing population and a growing economy can be misconstrued as roadways becoming more dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

YZF 10y ago
Anecdotally there are a lot more people glued to their screens than there used to be. I think one factor is younger people who become drivers after already have been addicted to their smart phones. It used to be that you could tell from a distance who was talking on their phone while driving. They would drift off their lane and correct randomly. At least while talking you have some % of your attention on driving, if low. While texting or interacting with the device's screen you have just about 0 attention left for other tasks. And you often don't even realize it... There must be some data specific to distracted driving you'd think... EDIT: Some data: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951952/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951952/ http://www.fleetfinancials.com/article/story/2011/09/5-year-analysis-accident-management-trends.aspx http://www.fleetfinancials.com/article/story/2011/09/5-year-... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/distracted-driving-texting-will-become-largest-cause-of-teen-deaths-1.3488719 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/distracted-dr...