About half of New York City drivers speed through the five boroughs while checking their cellphones, a troubling new study found. Drivers speed more than 45% of the time in NYC, and half of them look at their phones at some point while doing so, according to a report by Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which offers an app to motorists to track their road habits.
In July alone, there were 19,384 crashes on city streets, and cops cited driver inattention or distraction as a factor in 5,947 (31%) of them, according to NYPD statistics.
“It really underscores how pervasive the problem is,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, which spent the summer campaigning to get 140 school-zone speed cameras in the city reactivated after the program expired. “We need to strengthen Vision Zero and use better enforcement to bring reckless drivers under control.”
Nationwide, motorists look at their phones while driving on 36% of all trips. Motorists might be able to use Cambridge’s app to get a discount on their car insurance, depending on which company provides their policy. Cambridge said it has 55 million customers across the country.
Source: New York Post
