RAC Report on Motoring 2016

RAC call to action: Road safety: see page 88

RAC Report on Motoring 2016

2.0 Road safety

Figures for other types of phone use while in control of a moving vehicle are particularly alarming: 26% admit they have checked messages while driving in the last 12 months, while 19% have written and sent texts, emails or social media updates, despite the huge distractions involved. Finally, one in seven motorists (14%) say they have actually used their phones to take pictures or record videos while at the wheel. The 2016 Report on Motoring has also looked at the wider distractions reported by drivers. The most common is tiredness, cited by 40% of motorists as one of their top five distractions, followed by passengers talking (39%) and ’something interesting happening outside the car’ (37%). Such distractions, however, rarely appear in casualty

statistics and accidents attributable to such distractions are all too often simply attributed to ‘driver error’. A fifth (18%) of drivers cited being distracted by their mobile ringing, while 11% say using their mobile is a distraction. Only one in six motorists (16%) claim that they don’t get distracted while driving. While concerns over the behaviour of other drivers have grown, more people think that the roads themselves are safer now than in the past (46% against 42% in 2015), and almost two-thirds (63%) believe that driver-assistance technologies, which are increasingly common in the latest generations of vehicles, are making driving safer. And not surprisingly, 84% of motorists agree that cars are safer than they used to be (86% in 2015).

“It is interesting to see that tiredness is cited as the number-one distraction for drivers. One of the key reasons that people pull off into service areas is just to have a bit of a break. But there are issues concerning the limits put on how long motorists can stay in service areas. If you put the seat back and get your head down for a couple of hours, then that is the responsible thing to do, and you don’t expect someone to come along and slap a charge on you as a result.” THEO DE PENCIER Non-executive Board Member Transport Focus

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