American drivers are paying attention to many things other than the road. They’re devouring breakfast burritos, applying makeup and, of course, texting, tweeting and looking up directions on their smartphones. But driving while distracted can be dangerous for everyone on the road. From minor fender benders to fatal accidents, these incidents have a huge impact on drivers across the country. In 2017, there were 3,166 fatalities involving distracted driving in the United States.
MoneyGeek analyzed which states have the highest rates of distracted driving using federal statistics. States were ranked based on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to calculate the fatality rate based on distracted-driving deaths per billion miles driven.
While you might expect the worst places for distracted driving to be notoriously grid-locked parts of the country, the top three states are known for their wide-open spaces. These 25 states ranked highest for hazardous distracting driving.
