Report: Pokémon Go responsible for increase in car accidents?

Back in the summer of '16 when Pokémon Go first launched, we quickly learned the popular game could lead to accidents of various kinds. The app was updated with warnings and the game was adjusted so that if you were moving to fast (as you would be in a car), Pokémon would not spawn.

A study, entitled Death by Pokémon GO, conducted by two American academics, has set out to prove just how much danger the game is responsible for. Based on data from 12,000 road accidents in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, recorded between March 1, 2015 and November 30, 2016, researchers found a sharp increase in accidents over the period, with a jump of 26.5% in a 100 meter radius around Pokéstops.

According to them, 31 wounded and 2 dead, as well as nearly 500,000 dollars worth of damage that could be attributed to the augmented reality game over the period in question.

These figures, extrapolated to the entire United States, would amount to 145,632 accidents, 29,370 injuries and 256 deaths, as well as damages between $2 and $7.3 billion. Of course, such extrapolations are highly unscientific as they don't factor in other data.

The correlation between the number of accidents is perhaps a stretch to pin beyond doubt on Pokémon Go, but particularly during those early months it sounds plausible that the game was responsible for at least some of the increase.

Do you still play Pokémon Go?