The French are addicted to their phones.

Even while driving.

According to the Axa Prevention 2020 barometer, 69% of drivers surveyed use their phone while driving.

A vertiginous increase compared to 2004, when they were only 22%.

Smartphones, which allow you to talk to each other, consult or send a message, change music or follow your route, are ubiquitous, even within the passenger compartment of a vehicle.

If you need to pick up the phone, the 22nd edition of World Mobile Free Days will take place from February 6 to 8.

What to start a weaning.

A message multiplies the risk of an accident by 23

Because “it is a fantasy to believe that it is possible to continue to carry out your usual activities in parallel (especially) driving”, underlines Anne Lavaud, general delegate of the Road Prevention association.

Driving is the activity "the strongest in terms of mental load, it is to make a decision every 5 seconds", she explains.

According to an American study conducted in 2009 by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), writing a message while driving multiplies the risk of an accident by 23.

It is by four if you phone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Slow to relax

In its 2020 report, the National Road Safety Observatory (ONISR) estimates that the car of a driver with "diffuse" attention (reaction time of 2 seconds) puts, at 130 km/h, 54 meters longer to stop than a concentrated driver (0.5 sec).

The "lack of attention" was rightly noted by ONISR in one of the drivers in one out of five personal injury accidents in 2020, and in 13% of fatal accidents.

But this cause includes, in addition to the use of the telephone, that of technological distractors (GPS, driving assistance), the use of which is also increasing, as well as “inattention” in general.

“Amazing proportions”

The search for the telephone as the cause of an accident is only carried out "when there is no other obvious reason (alcohol, narcotics, excessive speed)", according to Me Vincent Julé-Parade, lawyer specializing in personal injury law and rights of victims.

Result according to Me Julé-Parade: “we have very little objective data in terms of statistics.

If we had more elements, we would reach staggering proportions”.

"The use of the telephone is a causality probably more difficult to determine than others", recognizes Marie Gautier-Melleray, interministerial delegate for road safety who is organizing an awareness exhibition until February 12 in Paris.

License suspension

358,858 fines for using the telephone were drawn up in 2020, i.e. nearly 100 per day, a figure deemed "ridiculously low" by Chantal Perrichon, president of the League against road violence.

And if using your phone does not constitute an autonomous aggravating circumstance in the event of an accident (unlike alcohol, narcotics or excessive speed), the repressive arsenal has however been tightened.

Since May 2020, motorists who commit a traffic violation with their phone in hand will now have their driving license immediately withheld and face a suspension of up to one year.

  • Car

  • Society

  • Road safety

  • Road accident

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