ZAGREB, October 21, 2018 – Ninety percent of drivers in Croatia use mobile phones while driving, 33 percent of cyclists do so while riding, and 50 percent of pedestrians have their eyes glued to the screen of their smartphone while crossing the street, a conference said in Zagreb earlier this week.
The conference, called “We and Our Gadgets in Traffic: Problems and Challenges”, was organised as part of the campaign “A Day without Mobile Phones in Traffic” by the Croatian Association of Safety Managers in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, and the Croatian Chamber of Commerce.
A panel discussion focused on an increasing number of distractions for drivers, including mobile phones and built-in advanced communications gadgets that come with new vehicles.
The national assistant chief of police, Ivan Merčep, said that their task was to inform the public of a growing threat posed by the use of mobile phones while driving.
The publication “The Mobile Phone: A Hidden Killer on the Road”, which includes the results of a survey of driving distractions, the first such survey conducted in Croatia, was presented at the conference.
It found that the average driver response time of 0.6 seconds increases to 1.5 seconds while speaking on the phone and to 2.7 seconds while texting. The mobile phone was found to be the fourth most frequent cause of road fatalities.
