April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month and this year, a new study ranked Virginia as the worst state for texting and driving.

“I don’t text and drive, I check when I get a text message. I say ‘Oh there’s a text message’ but I shouldn’t because when you look down, something can happen right in that second,” said Northern Virginia resident Ally Hill.

Every April, Zendrive analyzes the largest dataset of how people drive. In 2019, Zendrive found that Virginia drivers use their phone an average of 9 percent of the time, which is a 3 percent increase from last year.

“Now with the technology and the instantaneousness of it, you just have to see what it is. It’s never anything that’s important enough that you need to look at when you’re driving,” said Northern Virginia resident Richard Hill.

Across the United States, drivers are 10 percent more distracted this year than last year.

“If you’re doing it and you hurt yourself, it’s your fault. But if you hurt somebody while doing something that was not okay, I would feel really guilty,” said Ally Hill.

According to the study, phone addicts replace drunk drivers as the most dangerous threat on the road.

“I think what a lot of people think that ‘well I’m not going to have an accident, I’m good enough at it where it can kind of look and pay attention,’ even though we can’t. But I think we just like to think that so we can continue doing it,” said Richard Hill.

The study also finds that 1 in 12 drivers are addicted to their phone and predicts that number could rise to 1 in 5 drivers by 2022.

