[hjmcnew]

To be 100% clear, I totally agree with you that one shouldn't check their text messages while driving.

That being said, the statistics don't support your claim that traffic fatalities have spiked. Through 2014 (the last year the IIHS published statistics) fatalities had either leveled off or continued their historical decline.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit...

[dspillett]

Statistics are like bikinis: they show a lot but what they can hide is significant too.

Fatalities overall have fallen and continue to fall, largely due to increased use of seatbelts, other safety features in cars improving and being more commonly available. Also in many areas the overcrowding of roads is making fatalities drop: if you can't get up to any sort of speed then and collisions you experience will be less likely to be fatal!

But accidents due to being distracted by technology (and therefor the number of fatalities as a proportion of that) are, according to a number of studies, on the increase.

[hjmcnew]

Perhaps it is the pedant in me, but the parent didn't qualify by saying the number of fatalities due to distracted driving. There was only the blanket statement of an increase in the number of fatalities.

While I don't doubt you are correct that the proportion of fatalities due to distracted driving is increasing, I'd still like to see a link or two to the studies you cited.

[dspillett]

> I'd still like to see a link or two to the studies you cited.

Unfortunately I don't have such handy, though if I remember when I next have time I'll try hunt out a reference.

If you want clues to try hunt them down yourself: they will be things I've read about in New Scientist (dead tree publication), probably in sidebars to recent articles on advances in automated vehicles.

[beerbajay]

> In the first six months of 2016, highway deaths jumped 10.4 percent, to 17,775, from the comparable period of 2015, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/tech-distractions...

[hjmcnew]

Having read the article you posted the raw increase is concerning. Unfortunately the article does the statistics no favors. It uses anecdotal evidence and an increase in overall fatalities to draw a correlation that (likely is) but may not be there. Phone calls and SMS have been in cars for a couple decades. Smart phones have been prevalent about a decade. Apps have been a thing for more than 5 years. Why the sudden jump over the last 6 months? The article says apps are certainly to blame but then provides very little supporting evidence.

[peatmoss]

> the statistics don't support your claim that traffic fatalities have spiked. Through 2014[...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/traffic-deaths-up-more-...