Nine in ten motorists can’t complete a journey without being distracted by their phone, a shocking new study has found.
Despite the threat of receiving £200 fines and six points on a licence – plus the increased likelihood of being caught by new roadside camera technology – drivers are consistently flouting the rules.
Just 10 per cent are able to go from start to finish on a trip without using their device in some way or another, analysis of driving data collated from a sample of half a million motorists over the last 12 months and shared exclusively with This is Money revealed.
With more than 42million licence holders, it suggests 37.8million are being distracted by their phones behind the wheel.
The analysis, carried out by telematics firm IMS, raises yet more alarm bells about technology’s impact on road safety.
Some 23 deaths on the road last year were either entirely or partly caused by a driver being on the phone.
‘Distraction or impairment’ is also the third biggest contributor to fatalities on Britain’s roads, reported in 34.9 per cent of incidents where someone lost their life in 2023, according to official figures.
And experts are growing increasingly concerned about the impact of large, complex-to-use infotainment screens in the latest cars, which typically require drivers to take their eyes off the road for longer periods just to make simple adjustments to music volume, temperature settings and even adjusting the vehicle’s mirrors.
Analysis of driving data collated from a sample of half a million UK motorists over the last 12 months has found that just 10% are able to complete journeys without using their phones
What the study found
The study was conducted by IMS, a global leader in telematics data and connected motor insurance solutions.
It analysed data collected over the past 12 months from policyholders using usage-based insurance policies.
These are offered by providers including Aviva, Allianz, Admiral, and Hastings, using smartphone apps to monitor driving behaviour, provide coaching and reward safer motoring with lower premiums.
It examined the driving habits from a sample of approximately 500,000 customers using such policies.
It measured distraction on three levels: low, medium and high risk.
Low included drivers taking calls via Bluetooth headsets or via the built-in car stereo. While this doesn’t require a motorist to touch their phone – and is therefore a legal act in the UK – it does increase the risk of cognitive distraction by taking some of the motorists’ focus away from driving.
Medium risk covers when drivers accept video calls on their smartphone’s camera or have conversations over loudspeaker, which requires them to touch the device and is therefore illegal and punishable by a minimum £200 fine and six penalty points.
The highest distraction level is when motorists both touch and look at the phone screen instead of the road and traffic around them, which is again a punishable offence.
Studies, including research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, reveal that even after stopping a distracting activity – such as checking a phone or adjusting the radio – a driver’s cognitive focus remains impaired for up to 13 seconds.
At a speed of 55mph, this delay equates to travelling the length of three football fields without full attention on the road.
Experts behind the study said the findings show the scale of the issue distracted driving has become on British roads and makes clear that the vast majority of us are guilty of it
When it reviewed the data on half a million motorists, not only did it find that 90 per cent of journeys had instances of distracted driving but it also identified that many are using phones behind the wheel for incredibly long durations.
Almost two in five (38 per cent) were distracted by their device for between 1 and 25 per cent of their trip by car.
Nearly three in ten (28 per cent) used their phone for between a quarter and a half of their journey, while 16 per cent used it for between 50 to 75 per cent of the time they spent at the wheel.
Worryingly, 8 per cent were tracked using their phone for more than 75 per cent of journeys.
On average, each distracted driving event lasts 200 seconds while the vehicle is in motion, and 68 seconds while idle.
Alarmingly, 42 per cent of all trips include at least one distracted driving incident while the vehicle is moving.
With over 42 million licence holders in the UK, the study suggests 37.8 million are being distracted by their phones behind the wheel
‘Using a phone is just as bad as drink-driving’
IMS’s CEO Paul Stacy said: ‘Our latest findings show the scale of the issue distracted driving has become on British roads and makes clear that the vast majority of us are guilty of it.
‘The insurance industry is increasingly using smartphone technology to monitor and manage the road risk of policyholders that buy a usage-based insurance product, and from this data, we can see that smartphone distraction remains a significant contributor to road collisions and insurance claims.’
Professor Gemma Briggs, who specialises in Applied Cognitive Psychology at the Open University, told This is Money: ‘To drive safely, motorists need a good awareness of the situation they are in and to have available mental processing capacity to keep track of changes in the environment so that they can anticipate risks.
‘Phone use of any kind – even when stationary in traffic – interferes with this awareness, irrespective of driving skill or experience.
‘Research shows that phone-using drivers are four times more likely to crash than those who don’t use their phones, often fail to notice hazards entirely, but take significantly longer to react to any hazards they do notice, which has consequences for crash severity and outcomes.’
Prof Briggs also points out that distracted drivers can suffer from ‘inattentional blindness’; when they look directly at a hazard yet fail to see it because their mind is on their phone task.
‘Importantly, all of these effects carry through to hands-free phone use, despite there being no ban on this form of phone use by drivers,’ she warned.
‘The key issue with phone use is the cognitive distraction it causes. While drivers absolutely should not be taking their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel, removing the need to do so does not remove the mental distraction phone use causes, or the well documented negative effects it has on driving performance.’
Distraction impact on road traffic collisions
According to the most recently available Department for Transport figures, in 2023 there were 1,624 deaths on Britain’s roads.
Of these, 23 fatalities listed mobile phone use as a contributory factor.
In fact, distraction and impairment were cited in 34.9% of all fatal collisions.
Only speed (57.7%) and behaviour or inexperience (46.8%) were more common contributory factors in deadly road traffic accidents.
AA president Edmund King said the study is the latest in a wave of evidence that we need to see a bigger road traffic police presence to enforce mobile phone laws.
‘Far too often we see drivers using handheld phones and texting at the wheel,’ he said.
‘We need to make mobile phone use at the wheel as socially unacceptable as drink-driving.
‘To help ensure drivers get the message, we also need more cops in cars and active campaigns to help catch and deter those still tempted to pick up.
‘There’s no excuse for picking up a mobile phone when driving. If drivers cannot resist the temptation to pick up their phone, then they should convert your glovebox into a phone box. Using a phone at the wheel costs lives.’
Nicholas Lyes, director of policy and standards at road safety charity IAM RoadSmart, says our phones have become so ingrained in our day-to-day lives that some are ‘finding it challenging to detach themselves when behind the wheel’, with many motorists fragrantly breaching the law.
‘Our own research suggests almost one in five drivers admitted to having a video call while driving which will be incredibly distracting even if the phone is in a handsfree position.
‘To make matters worse, around one in seven are admitting to uploading videos to social media while driving,’ he added.
Rebecca Morris, a road safety specialist and campaigner, said she was ‘horrified’ by IMS’ findings but ‘sadly, not surprised’.
She told This is Money: ‘We’ve created a culture of entitlement on our roads, where driving is seen as a right, not a privilege.
‘Years of declining roads policing, weak enforcement, and a lack of proactive government leadership on road safety have left drivers feeling untouchable.
‘Many no longer fear detection, so they take the risk. Combine that with society’s deep-rooted addiction to mobile phones, and it’s a dangerous, and often deadly, mix.’
Rebecca says the study should be a ‘wake-up call to the Government’ facing with the mounting task of reducing road fatality numbers.
‘On average, five people are killed and hundreds more are injured on our roads every single day – yet we seem dangerously complacent. We would never accept this level of harm in any other area of life,’ she said.
‘We urgently need a robust and ambitious Road Safety Strategy, with clear national leadership, proper enforcement, and a culture shift that puts safety before mobility.’
Bigger penalties and roadside camera tech having little impact on phone use at the wheel
As of 1 March 2017, drivers caught using a phone face a minimum penalty of £200 fines and six points on their licence – double what they previous received.
Some five years later, the Government tightened the rules on what constitutes using a phone, making it an offence to simply touch one while a vehicle’s engine is running.
To increase the crackdown on motorists using devices while in control of motor vehicles, police forces and authorities across the country have started to use roadside camera technology that can identify if a driver is on the phone – and then automatically brandished punishment for doing so.
Yet thousands of motorists are still being prosecuted each year for illegally handling devices when they’re behind the wheel.
AI cameras are being rolled out across the country to catch drivers who break the law by using a smartphone
AI-powered cameras previously used in Devon caught 117 people using their mobile phones in just three days
In 2023, there were 15,300 prosecutions for ‘using or causing others to use a handheld mobile phone whilst driving’. And offence volumes have increased since 2020.
GoCompare car insurance has also tracked a rise in offences. Its own data – scraped from quotes ran through the comparison site – show the proportion of motorists declaring a conviction for driving while using a mobile device has increased by 21 per cent in the last three years.
One in five UK motorists (23 per cent) identified illegal phone use as their biggest motoring concern to the RAC in a 2023 poll.
And last year, 55 per cent of drivers under 25 told the motoring organisation that they have made or received voice calls without hands-free technology while driving – the highest rate seen by the RAC in eight years.
Professor Briggs says that camera enforcement only solves driver phone use on paper.
This is because studies have shown that many drivers caught using their phones ‘either continue to offend afterwards, try to reduce or conceal their phone use to avoid being caught again, or – most logically – switch to legal, handsfree use’, which still comes with a cognitive risk.
RAC road safety spokesperson Rod Dennis added: ‘We saw a reduction in motorists admitting to illegal handheld phone use after the penalties were toughened in 2017 following pressure from the RAC, but numbers are on the rise again now.
‘In fact, our research shows the proportion of young drivers making and receiving calls illegally hit its highest rate in eight years in 2024.
‘Enforcement of the law is critical, so we encourage police forces to roll out more roadside cameras to catch people in the act and get them to change their ways.’
The new driver distraction menace…
Infotainment in the latest cars, which has seen models fitted with enormous TV-like displays on the dashboard, are also becoming a major distraction concern.
With growing fears drivers are preoccupied by fiddly touchscreen systems, a study recently named and shamed the brands with the most difficult and convoluted to operate.
It found that it can take up to 22 seconds to complete simple tasks on the move – time where a driver isn’t entirely concentrated on the road ahead.
It comes as manufacturers from next year are threatened with having safety ratings for their vehicles downgraded if simple functions in the cabin are not operated using buttons and instead require motorists to prod through various screen menus.
Driven to distraction: Auto Express tested 10 of the latest infotainment systems from mainstream brands and named which are most time-consuming to use
Auto makers are being told to dial back confusing touchscreens systems as EuroNCAP prepares to introduce rules that penalise models that don’t have simple button controls
From 1 January 2026, vehicles without physical hard buttons or switches to control the indicators, hazard lights, horn, windscreen wipers and SOS function will receive lower marks in crash tests from safety body Euro NCAP.
With these new rules imminent, Auto Express in March examined which car brands have the most complex infotainment systems.
The test, which focused on how drivers interact with the systems while on the move, ranked the screens based on how distracting they can be.
It found that Skoda has the easiest to use out of ten mainstream brands while luxury brand Genesis was found to be the most difficult to operate, with some tasks taking four times longer to complete than the simplest system.
Paul Barker, editor of Auto Express, said: ‘This raises a key question: if smartphones are dangerous distractions, aren’t touchscreens even more so?’
Paul Stacy added: ‘More needs to be done to raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving, particularly as large in-car infotainment touchscreens become more prevalent.
‘In a recent poll, we found that 52 per cent of drivers identified them as their biggest in-car distraction, compared to just 14 per cent for smartphones.’
