The study does not only blame road design, which is a big problem, but they also discuss the American culture of in car smartphone use, particularly because American cars are far more likely to have automatic transmissions than their peer counterparts, such as Europe, where manual transmissions are far more likely (74%). As a result, Americans have a free hand available while driving to use their smart phones, where those in countries with prevalent manual transmissions do not.
Contributing factors include the American surge in homelessness, as those types of people tend to hang around the most dangerous roads at night and in numbers. 
But honestly if you live in Utah, you learn not to use crosswalks or try to cross the street at all. It’s almost always 100% a recipe for getting killed. Even police have to look for other ways to pull cars over, because if both cars pull to the side of the street or highway, they will get hit by oncoming traffic because people in Utah do NOT look at the road when they are driving. This is a very dangerous state, the worst statistically for auto accidents anywhere in the world.
The study does not only blame road design, which is a big problem, but they also discuss the American culture of in car smartphone use, particularly because American cars are far more likely to have automatic transmissions than their peer counterparts, such as Europe, where manual transmissions are far more likely (74%). As a result, Americans have a free hand available while driving to use their smart phones, where those in countries with prevalent manual transmissions do not.
Contributing factors include the American surge in homelessness, as those types of people tend to hang around the most dangerous roads at night and in numbers. 
What study are you talking about? This article here does not even mention phones.
But honestly if you live in Utah, you learn not to use crosswalks or try to cross the street at all. It’s almost always 100% a recipe for getting killed. Even police have to look for other ways to pull cars over, because if both cars pull to the side of the street or highway, they will get hit by oncoming traffic because people in Utah do NOT look at the road when they are driving. This is a very dangerous state, the worst statistically for auto accidents anywhere in the world.