Accurate monitoring of driving distraction has been proved to be a difficult task in the past. However, the rapid technological progress, especially in telematics and Big Data analytics, along with the increased penetration of information technologies to the drivers (e.g. smartphones), provide new potential for driving behaviour monitoring and analysis. Concerning driving distraction, one of the most influencing factors that has a significant effect on driver behaviour, is mobile phone usage. The objective of this paper is twofold, to analyse and assess the impact of mobile phone usage on driving characteristics such as the number of harsh events that occur while driving and to investigate the predictability of mobile phone usage. An innovative data collection scheme is implemented in this research by recording driving behaviour analytics in real time, using smartphone device sensors. Over a hundred drivers participated in the designed experiment during a 4-months timeframe. The number of harsh events occurred when driving was found to be influenced by several factors including mobile phone usage. Additionally, mobile phone usage is found to be predictable by a few factors such as driving duration and percentage of speed limit exceedance. The results of this research substantiate herein that distraction through smartphone has a serious impact on driving characteristics and subsequently on the relative crash risk. Further analysis of the data collected is implemented through statistical and econometric techniques and is leading to the quantification of the factors influenced by mobile usage that causes an alteration in driving risk.