Nineteen per cent of US drivers surf the web

A US SURVEY of driving habits has uncovered a particularly startling fact, that one in five drivers care less for safety than they do about looking at the Internet behind the wheel.

The survey, by - wait for it, an automobile insurance company - polled 912 people who were happy to make themselves look like idiots and admitted to holding a valid driver's licence, drove at least once a week and own a smartphone.

Using a phone while driving has been outlawed in the UK and in many US states, however that appears to have had little effect on some of those surveyed by the State Farm Insurance Company.

Fully 19 per cent of them said that they used the Internet while driving, and the majority are carrying out one of five tasks. None of which sound particularly critical.

The top five reasons they considered worthy of risking life and limb were finding and reading driving directions, reading email, looking up information of immediate interest - we take this to mean news, sports and weather - checking social notworking websites and composing and sending email.

State Farm said that some respondents used the Internet while at a red light or stuck in traffic, but other common always-on habits included when driving alone, during daylight hours, or on long drives on the interstate highways.

The motor insurance firm said that 40 per cent of the US population has a smartphone and if 20 per cent of those are out there racing around while updating their Facebooks, then that overgrown former British colony could be heading for carmageddon. With up to the second updates. µ