Driving is a privilege that must be handled with the utmost care in order to avoid costly and damaging accidents. Unfortunately, people too often take driving for granted and do so recklessly. Turning your eyes from the road for even a few seconds can cause a serious accident. In order to better understand the importance of safe driving, here’s a closer look at six reckless driving stats that should be of interest.

Six Key Reckless Driving Stats

1. Human error actually leads to around 90 percent of all road accidents. This can be anything from driving while under the influence of alcohol to passing through red lights. Changing lanes without first signalling to other drivers is also a huge factor in this stat.  HUMAN ERROR ACCOUNTS FOR 90% OF ROAD ACCIDENTS Alert   International News – April 2011

2. Over 6,600 people were killed in 2011 and 2012 altogether due to a motor vehicle crash that involved a distracted driver. This number rises by more than a hundred fold when merely looking at injuries due to distracted driving. There are three basic types of distractions, including visual, cognitive and manual distractions. CDC

3. Distraction was the primary cause for almost one in five crashes causing injury that occurred in 2011. The exact number was around 17 percent. A distraction can occur from reckless acts like taking your hands off the wheel for a few seconds to talking on a cell phone while driving. The CDC

4. The overall percentage of drivers text messaging while driving rose from 1.7 percent in 2013 to 2.2 percent in 2014. This is especially common in younger drivers among the ages of 16 to 24. In fact, these rates have continued to rise since 2007. distraction 

5. When looking at the age bracket of 15-19 year old drivers, ten percent were distracted at the time of a fatal accident. This is due to a combination of not having enough experience with the realities of the road to a simple recklessness that tends to be present when a teenager. This age group is the largest portion of drivers that were involved in accidents due primarily to recklessness. Id

6. 20.7 million people drove while under the influence of alcohol in 2013 alone. Alcohol is known to cause such side effects as impaired vision, bad reaction times, bad concentration, difficulties in comprehending sensory information and a whole host of additional issues. Getting into a driver’s seat while drunk is the very definition of reckless driving.  madd