Distracted Driving: Staying Safe on the Road

This post originally published on 4/8/2015 on the Allstate Blog by Brendan

Distracted driving poses a real danger to all drivers, but especially young drivers. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), 10 percent of all drivers under the age of 20 who were involved in a vehicle accident resulting in a fatality were reported as distracted at the time of the crash.

Hundreds of thousands of people are injured each year in vehicle accidents related to distracted driving; the NHTSA reports that in 2013 alone, 424,000 people were hurt in these types of crashes.

For the past two years, Allstate has been educating people about the dangers of distracted driving through its Reality Rides® program. Visiting high schools and community events throughout the country, Allstate encourages participants to experience distracted driving in a safe virtual reality program — and to see just how difficult and dangerous it can be.

In addition, Allstate also asked participants a series of questions before they tried out the simulator, in order to understand their attitudes about and knowledge of distracted driving. The highlights are below:

Survey Methodology: The onsite, multiple-choice Allstate Reality Rides 2013-2014 survey of more than 4,500 Americans age 15 and older was conducted from April 2013 through November of 2014 via 70 Reality Rides events before and after experiencing the distracted driving simulator. Gathered respondent data was normalized to ensure consistency between the pre- and post-simulation experience.