5 Disturbing Facts About Distracted Driving

On any given day, 660,000 drivers are distracted drivers. On an average day, 9 of those drivers will be killed or kill someone else.

More than 3,000 people die each year because of distracted driving. More than 300,000 people are injured each year.

A driver can safely glance away from the road for 2 seconds while operating a motor vehicle. But drivers take their eyes off the road for 5 seconds to send a text message, on average.

Distracted driving cause 10 percent of all fatal crashes for young drivers, ages 15-19, according to federal data. The percentages fall for drivers 19-65, and drop considerably for drivers older than 65. The percentage of U.S. drivers ages 18 to 64 who reported reading or writing text messages while driving is 33 percent.

In Tennessee in the last 10 years, there have been 193,426 crashes due to distracted driving. In Williamson County alone last year there were 794. In 2016 there were 1,040 (this stat excludes crashes with less than $400 damage, so it could be even more.) This is more than twice as many crashes related to alcohol; over the same time there were 73,980 crashes in the state due to drunk driving. In fact, one in four of all motor vehicle crashes involves a cell phone.

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