According to the current legal situation, the use of smartphones while driving is prohibited under Section 23 Subsection 1a of the German Road Traffic Regulations with disregard entailing a fine of 100 € and one penalty point in the Register of Driver Fitness of the Federal Motor Transport Authority. Still, nonobservance of this prohibition is increasing. Information on smartphone usage while driving are important data when assessing questions regarding traffic safety. In this year, research on driving behaviour with special regards to smartphone usage has therefore been started, comprising parameters such as age, traffic conditions, types of road etc. The objective is a continuous collection and update of these data in the future. This report describes the procedure of the most recent survey (2019) and presents the results as a basis for future updating. Around 145,040 observations were reported during the surveys. In order to be able to project the results onto traffic in Germany as a whole, the results have been weighted respective to the properties of the routes (time of day, weekday) and the drivers (age, sex, presence of passengers) according to the most recent vehicle mileage survey of 2014 and the most recent survey on mobility in Germany. As a result of driving with side activity, 3% of automobile drivers use their smartphones at an arbitrary time of observation. 2% type on their smartphones and have at least one hand off the steering wheel and the view off the road ahead. 1% speaks on the phone, with around half of these with their phones held to their ears. With regard to typing with a smartphone, it can be seen that young men driving alone in urban areas show this behaviour particularly frequently. Telephoning with a mobile phone on the ear and with a hands-free system or headset is comparably common. Men and women are affected in a similar way, with men making more frequent calls alone, at noon and on the motorway. Thus, for both types of mobile phone usage (messaging and speaking), this means that young female drivers and especially male drivers constitute a particularly relevant target group for corresponding traffic safety measures. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting