Distracted driving stays the highest concern for Canadian drivers for the third consecutive 12 months, in accordance with Desjardins Insurance coverage’s 2025 Highway Security Survey.
Sixty per cent of roughly 4,000 Canadian drivers surveyed for the most recent model of Desjardin’s annual survey pointed to distracted driving as the highest danger issue. Different prime danger components included alcohol-impaired driving at an in depth 59% and aggressive driving at 46%.
Desjardins’ most up-to-date annual survey, launched Wednesday, asks Canadians to share their opinions about street behaviours and habits.
Drilling down the Number one danger issue of distracted driving, the most important perceived distractions embrace issues like what’s occurring outdoors the automotive (34%), cellphone-related distractions (31%), drivers utilizing a media console or interface (24%), and consuming and ingesting (22%).
When requested particularly about aggressive driving, solely 6% of these polled think about themselves to be an aggressive driver, Desjardins notes in a press release. On the similar time, 71% report usually seeing aggressive driving behaviours when they’re behind the wheel.
“Distracted driving and aggressive driving put drivers and different street customers at excessive danger,” says Valérie Lavoie, president and chief working officer of Desjardins Normal Insurance coverage Group. “The perception we get and the behaviours and perceptions we find out about within the survey are key to having better-informed drivers on the street and safer roads in our communities.”
The survey finds 37% of Canadians polled are attempting to be much less distracted behind the wheel, “exactly due to the danger of a collision. And whereas fines and rewards have gotten much less efficient at countering distracted driving, Canadian drivers are more and more open to utilizing apps that analyze their behaviour on the street.”
The proportion of drivers with security applied sciences of their automobiles additionally continues to see important progress, Desjardins stories. Over the previous 5 to 10 years, automotive producers have rolled out improvements which have impacted the variety of road-related incidents. Right now, almost half of drivers have automobile security applied sciences of their vehicles — issues like rear-view cameras or indicator lights that alert drivers to a automobile coming as much as move, or sitting of their blind spot.
In keeping with the survey, 47% of drivers say expertise is more and more serving to them forestall collisions (in comparison with 43% in 2023 and 38% in 2021). Youthful drivers usually tend to depend upon these applied sciences to assist keep away from a collision (47% of 16- to 34-year-olds, in comparison with 39% of 55- to 74-year-olds).
The survey additionally discovered 11% of drivers who’ve skilled psychological distraction on the street have been in a collision. This proportion is almost double what was recorded in 2022 (6%). The most typical conditions for psychological distractions are throughout monotonous or boring drives, equivalent to driving on a protracted street or driving the identical route each day.
Characteristic picture by iStock.com/urbazon
