California takes title for most car-selfies

New data has California leading all states in the amount of people first taking a selfie before hitting the road. Distracted driving is at an all-time high with nearly everyone owning a cell phone.

Poll: Which form of distracted driving do you see most frequently while on the road?

Our news team looked up some popular hashtags, like #selfiewhiledriving and #drivingselfie. We found over 5,000 #selfiewhile driving posts and more than 27,000 #drivingselfie posts, and that’s just on Instagram.

On the other hand, there are some drivers who take these dangers seriously and hope that everyone will be encouraged to stop using their phones while driving.

Palm Desert resident, Alicia Lombardo said, “It’s really dangerous and it could wait. Any Snapchat can wait, and you really need to pay attention while you’re driving so you’re safe for yourself and the other people around you.”

We talked to CHP officer, Michael Radford, who says this problem is becoming more prevalent than ever before and can even be fatal.

“There’s three things you need to focus on while driving: what your hands are doing, what your eyes are doing and what you’re thinking. When you’re using your phone while driving, all three of those aspects are distracted– it causes crashes every day so we just hope people can avoid using their cell phones,” said Radford.

The police out here in the desert are trying to keep people safe. Being on the phone increases a drivers chance of being in an accident by 3 times.