Prohibiting drivers from using handheld devices leads to lower traffic fatalities, according to an analysis of NHTSA data by driver education company Zutobi.
Zutobi ranked states by a "distracted driving severity score" based on state population, the number of distracted driving-related fatalities in 2020 and the percentage of fatalities due to distraction.
New Mexico ranked worst, with a severity score of 99.98 — nearly double that of the next-worst state, Kansas. New Mexico experienced 148 distracted-driving fatalities in 2020. That was a rate of just over 10 per 100,000 licensed drivers. Around 38 percent of fatal crashes in the state involved distracted driving, Zutobi's report said.
Second-worst Kansas logged a severity score of 51.21 and 4.5 distracted driving fatalities per 100,000 drivers. It had 90 distracted-driving fatalities, and nearly 22 percent of fatal crashes involved distracted driving. Louisiana, Wyoming and Kentucky rounded out the fi…