Smart Mobility Why Mobile Phone Use While Driving is a Major Challenge

Why is the occasional quick glance at a smartphone while driving so problematic? To put it in a single sentence: It's more than just a distraction, it's driving blindly! The German Road Safety Council, for example, estimates that a driver who briefly reads or types a message for about two seconds travels up to 28 meters without looking at the street at 50 km/h and up to 55 meters at 100 km/h. The consequences of such serious driver distractions at the wheel are clear: In 2023 alone, 977 people in Germany were injured in road accidents in which the driver was distracted by an electronic device, 197 of them severely, and 20 were even killed. And in 2022, as many as 3308 people in the USA died in car crashes caused by drivers using their mobile phones. The British Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) says that drivers using their mobile phones are four times more likely to crash.

But even aside from safety issues, the effects of using a mobile phone while driving are serious: The British Department for Transport estimates that a single fatal accident costs the economy £1.8 million. It is clear something needs to be done, but how? Are laws the answer?

Legislation against mobile phone use while driving

Legislation prohibiting this dangerous behaviour are an important foundation, but they are not enough on their own to tackle the problem. Evidence of this is the widespread disregard for laws banning the use of mobile phones while driving. Recent statistics show, for example, that one-quarter of all drivers admit to making or recieving voice calls while driving, with that number rising to 49% among young drivers, ages 17 to 24.

The reason for this lack of compliance with legislation against mobile phone use while driving is that enforcement is very difficult and almost impossible to achieve by traditional means, i.e. by police officers. This would require a huge amount of manpower and would be very expensive.

The result is a lack of proper enforcement across the board, and the laws that should ensure road safety become empty words on paper.

Deterrent Effect to change social norms

Without effective enforcement, something crucial is missing: the deterrent effect. Fear of the consequences of breaking the law is a powerful motivator for compliance. However, if the likelihood of being caught is virtually zero due to inadequate enforcement, there is no such deterrence. As a result, the public does not take the laws seriously enough, which encourages more and more drivers to break the law and use their mobile phones while driving.

This also leads to a lack of influence on social norms. Currently, using a mobile phone while driving is seen more as an inappropriate behavior than as a dangerous illegality. Comprehensive enforcement can lead to a long-term change in perception and behavior.

The key question is therefore how to implement effective and practical enforcement.

Automated mobile phone detection

It has already been established that the primary challenges in enforcing mobile phone laws are budget limitations and staffing shortages. This underscores the need for efficient enforcement strategies that work independently of staffing fluctuations, perhaps even reducing the workload. One solution that is ready to meet this challenge is the use of advanced technology. By combining sophisticated cameras and AI-based software, mobile phone offenses while driving can be detected and recorded fully automatically. And since these systems can be integrated into the existing traffic infrastructure, for example by mounting them on poles, their deployment is not a future reality but is possible in the relatively short term.
And what’s more, the systems can also detect when a driver is not wearing a seat belt, which counteracts another dangerous behavior. Wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of fatal injuries by at least 50%. And about one in four drivers or passengers killed in a road accident was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident or was not wearing it correctly.