Feds Suggest Guidelines for Smartphone Makers to Combat Distracted Driving

Government Technology: Have you ever texted while driving? Be honest. It's no secret that the smartphone revolution in the last decade has increased the instances of distracted driving. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released voluntary guidelines for mobile device manufacturers to address the issue on Nov. 23.

According to the report, in 2015, 10 percent of the 35,092 traffic fatalities involved at least one driver who was distracted by a mobile device — an 8.8 percent increase from 2014. Of non-fatal accidents in 2014 (the most recent year where distraction-affected crash data is available) 16 percent involved distracted drivers.

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