Recent research from Privilege Car Insurance revealed that 23 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds cannot resist using their phones to check their social media accounts when behind the wheel. This dangerous obsession with mobiles has also led to 28 per cent of millennials reading and sending text messages while driving.
Despite the risk of six penalty point, a fine of up to £1,000, and being a danger to our road users, the poll of 2,000 adults discovered six per cent send messages on a daily basis behind the wheel, while five per cent confessed to checking their social media every day while on the move.
Millennials have also admitted to having arguments with a passenger in the car when they should have been focussing their attention on the road (17 per cent), or have been close to crashing because they weren’t concentrating (13 per cent).
Half a million British drivers don’t believe they should have a driving licence
The research discovered that it’s not just millennials who have picked up bad driving habits. A third of all UK drivers (34 per cent) have attempted to eat or drink while driving in the last year. Thirty-three per cent of women drivers confessed to using the rear-view mirror to check their hair and makeup on the go, while the same number admitted to going through their possessions – such as their handbag – when they should have been focussed on the road ahead.
Several other distractions and bad habits for drivers were also identified:
- 11 per cent of drivers have been distracted while at a set of traffic lights and failed to move when they turned green
- 10 per cent have set off on a journey in the dark and forgotten to put on their headlights
- Six per cent of British drivers have taken their eyes off the road to engage in a conversation with a back-seat passenger
- Four per cent admit they have driven through a red light
- Four per cent think they are not good drivers
- Three per cent confessed that the roads would be safer if they were not driving.
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