The Cost Of Distracted Driving To Hospitals Nationwide Is Staggering & Here Is How We Can Stop It

With over 5,500 registered hospitals in the United States, it is estimated by the CDC, that the cost of medical care and productivity losses associated with occupant injuries and deaths from motor vehicle traffic crashes exceeded $75 billion in 2017. Without taking into account the disparity between travel times to hospitals and by simply averaging this data to span across all hospitals nationwide, it is estimated that on average each hospital is losing $13.5M annually from motor vehicle traffic crashes and 25% of those losses are due to distracted driving incidents.

Distracted driving deaths killed nearly 4,000 people in 2015 and was the reported cause of death of 3,450 people in 2016. An estimated 391,000 drivers were injured in distracted driving crashes in 2017. It is for these reasons that many hospital systems nationwide have created pledge programs in an effort to encourage their community to not to tech and drive, but these pledges aren’t changing behavior quickly enough to make an impact. Hospitals can only do so much to influence the communities they serve, which is why it is imperative that they leverage readily available technologies designed to influence behavioral change.  

In states that banned texting while driving reported an average 4% reduction in motor vehicle crash-related ER visits. States which made texting while driving a primary offense saw an even higher reduction in post-crash hospitalization, reaching an 8% reduction on average.

With nearly 10% of all injury-related visits to the emergency room due to motor vehicle crashes, it is imperative that hospitals be at the forefront of the conversation of trauma prevention. There are several ways hospital systems can lead the way to end distracted driving, click here to read the full article by AJ T. Cole.