The Road Safety Day on 20 September 2018 aims to raise road users' awareness of the dangers of distraction. Traffic experts warn that distraction at the wheel is an ever-increasing risk of accidents. Around 55 percent of all drivers regularly use their smartphone at the wheel. More can happen in a second than you think! A quick glance at your cell phone or typing the address into the sat nav is life-threatening.

The NRW police are taking part in the cross-state road safety campaign "sicher.mobil.leben - Ablenkung im Blick" on Thursday. On this day, the police will be carrying out more checks and explaining the risks posed by distraction in road traffic.

In 2017, the NRW police punished a total of 156,784 cell phone violations. In view of the increased risk of up to 50-fold due to smartphone distraction, which has been proven by scientific studies, distraction is undisputed among experts to be one of the main causes of traffic accidents in NRW.

Information on the interim status of the checks and the results in NRW will be provided during the course of the day on September 20, 2018. The overall results will be published the following day.

In future, the cross-state road safety campaign "sicher.mobil.leben" will take place annually with different themes.