Car insurance rates are going up and you can blame the smartphone.
Insurers expect rates to rise by 8 to 11 percent in 2017 as auto accidents rise along with distracted driving.
Auto insurers say distracted driving is so bad that they are beginning to see many auto accidents with no skid marks, according to the Wall Street Journal. The drivers literally never saw it coming.
Experts expected accidents to drop and rates to lower as car-makers adopted higher tech protections, but that has not happened.
According to Allstate Corp., the striking correlation between smartphone ownership and accidents is because people do more than talk on the phone when they are driving. Maybe talking was bad enough, but now drivers are making videos, texting and using the Internet.