ABSTRACT
A.30.1.1 Inquiry into Driver Distraction .................................................... 552 A.30.1.1.1 Introduction ................................................................... 552 A.30.1.1.2 Recommendations ......................................................... 553
References .............................................................................................................. 556
Each year, around 1.2 million people worldwide die as a result of road crashes.1 For every death, around 50 million people are injured and around 15 million injuries are severe enough to require hospitalization.2 Findings from the analysis of police-reported crashes, reviewed in Chapter 16, suggest that driver distraction is a contributing factor in 10-12% of crashes. Converging data, from the 100-car Naturalistic Driving study in the United States,3 suggest that distraction is a contributing factor in up to 23% of crashes and near-crashes. Globally, therefore, driver distraction is a signifi cant cause of unintentional death. As such, the development, implementation, and evaluation of injury countermeasures to prevent and mitigate the effects of distraction are critical to reducing existing road trauma and preventing distraction from escalating into a bigger problem than it already is.
