Selfish 'selfies' on the road!

Dangerous Driving

Are you one of the people that believes that the internet definitely needs a picture of you whilst you are behind the wheel of your car? .... If you are, we at Shortfall hope that this article will help to indicate the danger of in car selfies.

Recent research by Confused.com the insurance experts has showed that 7% of drivers have admitted to taking a selfie whilst they are driving. 9% of 18-24 year olds have admitted to using Snapchat, the photo messaging app, in comparison to 8% who've admitted to tweeting and 5% who say they have been onto Instagram.

Since 2010 when Instagram was launched, there have been an outstanding 10,000 photos that have been hashtagged with #Driving Selfies or #Driving Selfie, which are usually combined with the sarcastic comments #safe driver, #look man no hands and #lucky we didn't crash.

There have been a number of Road safety charities that have hit out at this latest trend, with one spokesperson from Brake explaining that this is selfie selfishness. Using a phone at all whilst at the wheel increases dramatically the risk of crashing and seriously injuring or even killing somebody. The spokesperson went on to say that it is extremely worrying that there are a large number of motorists that are engaging in such dangerous behaviour, especially young drivers who already have a higher risk of crashing due to their inexperience.

The recent research surveyed 2,000 motorists and found that over 1/3 admitted to using their mobile phone whilst they were driving, with almost 9% having actually been involved in an accident when they were on the phone. Less than one in ten drivers however have said that they have been caught by the police for using their mobile whilst they were driving and more than half of those that have been caught have went on to use their mobiles again whilst they were driving.