More US than Europeans drivers are on the phone

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WASHINGTON - Distracted driving is more widespread in the U.S. than in Europe, according to a study released Thursday that surveyed drivers about their cellphone and texting habits.
More U.S. drivers reported talking on their cellphones behind the wheel than their counterparts in seven European countries, the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Nearly 69 percent of U.S. drivers said they had talked on a cellphone while driving within the previous 30 days. The share of European drivers who said they chatted on their phones ranged from 21 percent in the United Kingdom to 59 percent in Portugal.

A larger share of U.S. drivers also reported reading or sending text or email messages while driving. Only Portugal's drivers matched those in the U.S. for this distracting habit , 31 percent in both countries. Spain had the smallest share of drivers who said they texted or emailed, at 15 percent.

The study was based on online surveys of drivers ages 18 to 64 in the U.S., Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom in 2011.

Researchers offered no explanation for why the use of distracting mobile devices is more common in the U.S. than other countries. Mobile device markets in the U.S. and Europe are similarly saturated, making it unlikely that the findings are attributable to differing portions of the population owning devices in the countries, the study said.

It's also unlikely that differences in local laws can fully explain why more U.S. drivers than European drivers say they use their phones, the study said. Nearly all European countries banned hand-held cellphone use by drivers, yet there was a large variation in the share of drivers reporting the use of cellphones in the seven EU countries surveyed.

"We can't really say why a greater percentage of drivers in the U.S. appear to be engaging in these behaviors. We really don't know," the study's author, CDC epidemiologist Rebecca Naumann, said. "We certainly know it's an area that deserves more research."

One possible explanation is that Europeans "tend to be better at obeying traffic laws because of better enforcement," said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The driving environment in Europe is also different, Rader said. "We know people are more likely to use their phones or check their messages at stop lights, but European roads have more roundabouts so drivers aren't sitting at stoplights as much," he said. "More Europeans drive manual-transmission cars, too, which makes it more difficult to use phones."
In the U.S., 39 states and the District of Columbia have banned texting while driving. Ten states and the District of Columbia have banned hand-held cellphone use for all drivers, but many more states have additional limitations on cellphone use by young or novice drivers.

Those laws haven't yet proven effective in decreasing these behaviors, Naumann said.

The study's finding that more than two-thirds of U.S. drivers reported cellphone use and a third had reported texting or emailing is consistent with previous studies. A national telephone survey by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety conducted in 2010 found that 69 percent of drivers had used a cellphone while driving and 24 percent had texted while driving during the previous 30 days. Similar estimates have been reported from surveys carried out by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

"To me this says we still have a huge distracted driving problem. It's a cultural problem, and we haven't convinced the country yet that this is a serious issue," said Jonathan Adkins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety offices.

Researchers also looked specifically at U.S. drivers and found:
There were no significant differences between men and women in terms of cellphone use or reading or sending text or email messages while driving.A higher percentage of 25- to 44-year-old men and women reported talking on a cellphone while driving than those ages 55-64.A higher percentage of 18- to 34-year-old men and women reported reading or sending text or email messages while driving than those ages 45-64.
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Survey: Louisiana car insurance costs most, Maine least

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Insurance shopping website Insure.com is out with its annual annual of average new-car insurance costs, and once again Louisiana tops the list, a dubious distinction for a state not typically No. 1 in 50-state lists. No. 2 is the home of the domestic auto industry, Michigan.

Maine drivers have the cheapest average rates in the survey, which calculates the average annual premium for more than 750 new vehicles models in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

"Louisiana can't catch a break," said Amy Danise, editorial director of Insure.com, in a statement. "It is consistently at the top of our rankings. One way to mitigate the rate pain is to buy the cheapest car to insure in the state, which is the Jeep Patriot Sport in Louisiana."

The site says states tend to get to the top of the list based on "frequent and expensive auto insurance claims among residents." It also says that rural states tend to benefit from a lack of big cities that are fertile ground for accidents and claims, but the list shows that individual state factors can count for more.

Louisiana's problem, according to Insure.com, is that folks there make big claims and sue each other a lot in front of friendly judges. Says the site: "A high portion of Louisiana drivers who are in accidents file bodily injury claims. Also, car accident lawsuits for less than $50,000 go before elected judges," who it says tend to side with consumers more than insurers.

It says Michigan residents pay more in part due to "the state's guarantee of unlimited, lifetime personal injury protection benefits for treatment of injuries from a car accident." It says insurers pay the first $500,000 and medical expenses above that are paid by a Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association, which adds a fee to everyone's insurance premium ($175 per vehicle this year).

Neither Louisiana nor Michigan, however, take the crown for the single most expensive insurance bill for any vehicle in any state. That would be for insuring a Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG coupe in Oregon -- a whopping annual premium of $5,867, and that's for a driver with a clean record, according to the website. M-B AMG does, however, also sell the costliest car to insure in Louisiana, an S65 AMG sedan.

The lucky driver with the cheapest combination of vehicle and state would be someone with a Toyota Tacoma pickup in Wyoming -- shelling out on average just $698.

Here are the states, from costliest to cheapest, for car insurance, based on averaging the annual premiums for more than 750 vehicles from the 2013 model year:

1.1. Louisiana - $2,699
2.2. Michigan - $2,520
3.3. Georgia - $2,155
4.4. Oklahoma - $2,074
5.5. Washington, D.C. - $2,006
6.6. Montana - $1,914
7.7. California - $1,819
8.8. West Virginia - $1,816
9.9. Rhode Island - $1,735
10.10. Kentucky - $1,725
11.11. Connecticut - $1,723
12.12. New Jersey - $1,697
13.13. Alabama - $1,667
14.14. Missouri - $1,638
15.15. Massachusetts - $1,625
16.16. Pennsylvania - $1,604
17.17. Delaware - $1,586
18.18. Hawaii - $1,583
19.19. Texas - $1,545
20.20. Arkansas - $1,545
21.21. Maryland - $1,528
22.National average - $1,510
23.22. North Dakota - $1,501
24.23. Wyoming - $1,496
25.24. Alaska - $1,455
26.25. Utah - $1,438
27.26. Kansas - $1,435
28.27. Minnesota - $1,432
29.28. New Mexico - $1,431
30.29. Tennessee - $1,408
31.30. South Dakota - $1,397
32.31. Oregon - $1,387
33.32. Nebraska - $1,384
34.33. New York - $1,369
35.34. Florida - $1,364
36.35. Mississippi - $1,345
37.36. Nevada - $1,341
38.37. Virginia - $1,322
39.38. Illinois - $1,322
40.39. South Carolina - $1,288
41.40. Colorado - $1,271
42.41. Wisconsin - $1,228
43.42. Arizona - $1,227
44.43. Washington - $1,226
45.44. Indiana - $1,183
46.45. Vermont - $1,176
47.46. Idaho - $1,133
48.47. New Hampshire - $1,112
49.48. Ohio - $1,106
50.48. North Carolina - $1,085
51.50. Iowa - $1,028
52.51. Maine - $934

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Auto Insurance American Family Is Awesome

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During the 1970s and 1980s there was a growth in support for the requirement for drivers to have insurance as a means of proving financial responsibility since it was recognized that the automobile, in the case of an accident, could cause significant collateral damage. It soon followed that car insurance became a mandatory requirement for all drivers.
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