Distracted Driving
Activities that take drivers’ attention off the road, including talking or texting on cellphones, eating, conversing with passengers and other distractions, are a major safety threat. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gauges distracted driving by collecting data on distraction-affected crashes, which focus on distractions that are most likely to affect crash involvement such as dialing a cellphone or texting and being distracted by another person or an outside event. In 2015, 3,477 people were killed in distraction-affected crashes, and 391,000 people were injured. There were 3,196 distraction-affected fatal crashes, accounting for 10 percent of all fatal crashes in the nation, 15 percent of injury crashes and 14 percent of all motor vehicle crashes in 2015.
Fatal Crashes Affected By Distracted Drivers, 2015
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Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
NHTSA says that in 2014, 13 percent of distraction-affected crashes occurred while a cell phone was in use. The chart below shows driver hand-held phone use by age.
Driver Hand-Held Cellphone Use By Age, 2006-2015 (1)
(1) Percent of drivers using hand-held cellphones.
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
NHTSA’s website, Distraction.gov has more information on distracted driving. “It Can Wait”, a public awareness campaign funded by four by wireless carriers, provides resources on the dangers of distracted driving, including “From One Second to the Next”, a film by director Werner Herzog profiling the victims of distracted driving.
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