A recent study conducted research in all of the states around the country in order to determine where the most distracted drivers reside. The study was done by the Georgia based law group, Bader Scott Injury Lawyers. The main basis for much of their conclusions came from analysis conducted using information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the U.S. Census Bureau.
So, how did they determine rankings?
The final rankings for each state were determined by three category rankings. The first category was distracted driving fatality percentage. The second category was number of people killed per 100,000 residents by distracted drivers. Lastly, the third category that weighed in to determine the ranking was the number of distracted drivers per 100,000 residents involved in fatal crashes. Based on these evaluations, they were able to order the states from most distracted drivers to least and the results are quite surprising.
Texas ranked number eight as the eighth worst state for distracted drivers in the United States.
According to the study, Texas had almost 500 deaths occur in accidents in which distracted driving was the cause. This was around 11.23% of all fatalities in accidents for the state, which is much higher than most other states showed. To put it into perspective, the national average is only 7.78%, meaning Texas was 3.45% higher than the national average. It is important to note that this ranking does come from the 2022 statistics. Additionally, the study registered that 4.03 for every 100,000 licensed drivers were in a fatal accident due to distracted driving and 1.62 for every 100,000 registered drivers were killed by a distracted driver.
If Texas placed eighth, who came out on top?
The Bader Scott Injury Lawyers sponsored study found New Mexico to have the worst case of distracted drivers. 40% of all of the state’s fatal accidents were due to distracted driving. They also had much higher numbers of fatal accident involvement and fatalities overall per 100,000 drivers. 18.83 people were involved in fatal crashes and 8.75 were killed by distracted drivers. Taking the other top spots in the top 10 worst distracted driving state are Kansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, Hawaii, Idaho, Wyoming, and Washington.
