Reminder: Don't Post To Social Media While Driving

You've heard of talking on the phone while driving and texting while driving — both of which are generally bad ideas — but now be prepared for something infinitely worse: As baffling as it sounds, it turns out that posting pictures on social media while driving is becoming more and more common. In fact, there's even a hashtag, #whiledriving, on Instagram. Pardon me while I post a picture of myself resolutely deciding never to get into a car ever again in an effort to avoid all the nightmare drivers out there.

So what is so important that people are risking their lives to post it? According to analysis of the #whiledriving hashtag, by Erie Insurance, most of the photos posted with the hashtag seem to be of sunsets, clouds and scenery, which suggests people just can't resist capturing scenic moments while behind the wheel — though selfies still rank as one of the top 10 most common photos found on driving hashtags.

Although I suppose it's possible that people are taking pictures while driving and waiting until no longer operating a vehicle to do the more attention-consuming steps to post the photo, the taking of the photo still requires phone use while driving in the first place, which is incredibly dangerous. And the fact that people are taking pictures instead of focusing on the road is scary for everyone, whether you're behind the wheel or not.

“Drivers should be keeping their hands on the wheel, their eyes on the road, and their attention on driving, but, based on our analysis of the ‘while driving’ hashtag, many appear instead to be gazing off into the sunset, often times snapping and sharing photos — clearly an unsafe situation,” said Doug Smith, Erie Insurance senior vice president of Personal Lines, in a statement.

He continued, “The statistics about the dangers of distracted driving are alarming. So while it’s understandable to want to share a picturesque sky with your social media followers — imagine if it were the last one. It’s just not worth it. We hope our analysis helps drive that point home.”

Distracted driving is a legitimate danger, causing hundreds of thousands of accidents per year, including over 3,000 fatalities in 2014 alone. Distracted driving doesn't just involve phones, but phones are a big problem. And even though we often get scared of teens and their phone habits behind the wheel, studies show adults are even more likely to text and drive. And although we don't have age demographics for people posting photos while driving, the practice is still pretty scary.

So where are drivers the worst about this? Well, according to the Erie Insurance analysis, the worst state for posting pictures while behind the wheel is California, followed by Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and New York. So if you live in any of those, beware of pretty sunsets and pretty scenery. Because there might just be some idiot paying more attention to their picture taking than the road.

Images: Tanya Yatsenko/Stocksy; Giphy