Distracted driving may make for fun dashcam videos on social media, but it has increasingly become a deadly problem on American roads. Bader Scott Injury Lawyers’ recent research discovered that distracted driving kills thousands of people each year, but in some states the numbers are much higher than others.
New Mexico was the worst state in the study, with a final score of 100, and nearly 40% of fatal crashes were caused by caused by distracted drivingThe ten states with the worst distracted driving are:
- New Mexico: 100 final score/39.7% deaths caused by distracted driving
- Kansas: 48.01/26.83%
- Louisiana: 40.16/17.33%
- Kentucky: 37.91/17.2%
- New Jersey: 36.36/26.72%
- Hawaii: 30.59/21.55%
- Idaho: 25.97/16.28%
- Texan: 22.48/11.23%
- Wyoming: 21.01/8.96%
- Washington: 18.8/13.23%
Bader Scott calculated the overall score by examining other factors including the total number of fatal crashes, the number of fatalities per distracted driversfatalities per 100,000 residents and distracted drivers per 100,000 licensed drivers. New Mexico took the “top” spot in a few categories, including distracted drivers per 100,000 licensed drivers.
Some states performed much better in the study, with one receiving an overall score of zero. Rhode Island was ranked as the best state for distracted driving, with the lowest overall score. The top ten states are:
- Rhode Island: 0/0%
- Connecticut: 3.42/2.23%
- Alaska: 4.36/2.44%
- Mississippi: 4.74/1.71%
- Nevada: 4.97/2.64%
- California: 5.65/3.34%
- Minnesota: 5.9/4.05%
- North Carolina: 5.99/3.01%
- New Hampshire: 6.24/4.11%
- Iowa: 6.27/3.85%
The law firm looked at data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) and Census Bureau Population figures. It is important to note that while the distracted driving rankings are for the 2024 calendar year, the data from Bader Scott of the NHTSA and FHA came from 2022The overall scores were calculated based on three key indicators: the percentage of fatal crashes involving distracted driving (30% weighting), the number of deaths per 100,000 residents involving distracted drivers (35%), and the number of distracted drivers per 100,000 licensed drivers involved in fatal crashes (35%). Those weighted scores informed the final calculations, and states were ranked based on the total number.