How many times do young drivers actually touch their smartphone screens while driving?

Smartphone usage while driving, and particularly texting, poses a major concern for road safety. The goal of this study is to suggest a novel and objective means to measure the smartphone usage among young drivers. A naturalistic study was conducted with 254 Israeli young drivers who installed a research‐oriented smartphone app which continuously monitors smartphones usage while driving. The app captures the actual number of times drivers are ‘touching’ their smartphone screens, the speed at which these screen‐touches occur, foreground apps and time stamps. The results, which are based on 3304 h of driving performed in 11,528 trips, indicate that young drivers touch their smartphone screen on average 1.6 times per minute of driving. Alarmingly, more than half of the screen‐touches are performed while the vehicle is in motion, and some touches occur even at speeds higher than 100 km/h. The screen‐touches occur throughout the trip regardless of its duration. Approximately half of them are performed while using WhatsApp, a popular free messaging app. These findings provide objective evidence to the actual and intensive usage of smartphones. While comparing these results to participants' self‐reports, it was found that young drivers clearly underestimate their smartphone usage while driving.