WASHINGTON — Auto insurers believe drivers who text, use smartphone apps or are otherwise distracted are a big factor in the recent surge in traffic fatalities and injuries, an industry official said Thursday.
The Transportation Department recently announced that deaths spiked 10.4 percent in the first six months of this year. That followed a 7.2 percent increase in 2015 after years of declining deaths.
Robert Gordon, senior vice president for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, told a safety forum that the increase isn’t spread evenly across the country. He said insurers are seeing bigger increases in the frequency of auto collisions in urban areas where traffic congestion is getting worse, and declines in area where congestion is less of a problem.
For example, the frequency of collisions dropped 11.3 percent in Alaska from 2014 to 2016, but rose 14 percent in the District of Columbia and 5.9 percent in neighboring Maryland. Other states with big increases in collisions include Florida, 9.1 percent; Georgia, 9.4; South Carolina, 7.9 percent; Mississippi, 6.7; Texas, 5.7; Nevada, 9.7; Oregon, 6.1, and Washington, 6.2. States with declines included Minnesota, 10.7 percent; North Dakota, 9.7 percent; Michigan, 9.3; Vermont, 7; Wisconsin, 6.5; Maine, 5.4; New Hampshire, 4.8; Iowa, 4.7; and West Virginia, 4.2.