Young Americans Fear Distracted Drivers

Forget about spiders, snakes, death or even the much-dreaded public speaking. While still scary, they all now take a backseat in the overall fright factor they instill in young Americans to a new menace: bad drivers.

So says a new study conducted by the research firm Penn Schoen Berland on behalf of Ford Motor Co. In the survey of 1,000 Generation Z (ages 16-22) and Y (23-34) also known as Millennials Americans, "dangerous drivers" were listed by 88% of respondents as a top fear.

Public speaking, which has been the top anxiety-inducing concern listed for decades, fell to No. 2 in the poll at 75%. It was followed by death (74%) and spiders and snakes, both of which were cited by 69% of those queried.

"As driver distraction and safety conversations have broadened, we are seeing what technology will help customers tackle their greatest fears."

The most worrisome driving situations among survey respondents are snowy or icy roads (79%); maneuvering into a tight parking spot (75%); backing out onto a busy street (74%); and monitoring blind spots (70%).

Ford notes that it already offers many of these technologies, including 19 vehicles with rearview cameras. In addition, the carmaker provides blind-spot monitoring on 10 vehicles and semi-automatic parallel parking (9), adaptive cruise control (7) and lane-keeping systems (5).

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents indicated that they are more likely to purchase a vehicle if it has technology to help with parallel parking. Another 62% say they are interested in technology that helps detect objects in blind spots.