Distracted Drivers Run Over 7 Million Red Lights Annually

As much as twelve percent of red light violations – equal to an annual total of 7.3 million stoplight infractions annually – are the result of distracted drivers, according to a new study. The research by the National Coalition for Safer Roads, or NCSR, and anti-distracted driving group FocusDriven tallies the results from stoplight camera images gathered at 118 intersections in nineteen communities over a three-month timespan.

Though the report doesn’t put a human toll on the problem in terms of crashes, injuries or accidents, some automotive safety experts have singled out red light running as the single leading cause of urban traffic accidents. If the findings can be extrapolated on a nationwide scale that would suggest that distracted drivers run red lights more than 7.3 million times annually.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety contends that stoplight violations are the leading cause of accidents on crowded urban roads, and "The longer the light has been red when a violator enters an intersection, the more likely the driver is to encounter a vehicle traveling in another direction or a pedestrian," according to Anne McCartt, Senior Vice President of Research at the IIHS.

The new study is likely to add more fuel to the fire as automotive safety advocates demand not only more regulations but also stricter enforcement of existing rules on distracted driving. Hawaii recently became the fortieth state to enact such guidelines. They vary from state to state though most now bar texting while driving and the majority of those states have also put limits on the use of handheld phones.

According to FocusDriven and the NCSR, the new stoplight study shows that enforcement of distracted driving laws can have a major impact on red light running. In the communities covered by the research where authorities or more lenient – or where there are no rules at all – distracted driving accounted for sixteen percent of stoplight violations. Where there was strict enforcement that fell to less than ten percent.

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