Distracted Driving Statistics 2024 (2024)

You may not think the glance you give your smartphone as you commute or run errands could be deadly, but the difference between life and death could be as small as a few seconds. Distracted driving kills thousands of drivers and injures several hundred thousand more every year.

The MarketWatch Guides team reviewed sources from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and more to highlight the dangers of distracted driving. If you’re guilty of driving distracted, take a moment to reconsider. Your decision to put the phone down and keep your full attention on the road could save your life and protect others on the road.

Key Findings

• Nearly all 50 states enforce a ban on texting while driving.
• In 2021, 8% of all car crashes that year were due to cell phone usage.
• Young adult and teen drivers are most at risk for distracted driving.
• Novice drivers pay some of the highest car insurance premiums, but the addition of a distraction-related auto accident can significantly increase those rates.

What Is Distracted Driving?

Distracted driving means engaging in any behavior that takes your concentration away from the act of driving while you’re behind the wheel. The NHTSA identifies the following as common driving distractions:

• Eating and drinking
• Texting or talking on the phone
• Talking to passengers
• Interacting with the radio or GPS

Any activity that doesn’t contribute to proper and safe driving practices can be classified as distracted driving.

Types of Distracted Driving

The CDC recognizes three types of driving distractions: visual, manual and cognitive.

Checking your smartphone to send or read a text (a visual, manual and cognitive distraction) at highway speeds of about 55 miles per hour equates to driving across a football field with your eyes closed, per the CDC. Drivers must actively engage visually, physically and cognitively to promote a safe driving environment.

How Many Crashes a Year Are Due to Distracted Driving?

In 2021, 13% of all accidents that occurred that year were the result of a distracted driver, according to the NHTSA. While this percentage was lower in both 2020 and 2021 than it had been in the three previous years, this still equates to hundreds of thousands of accidents that could have been prevented without distractions. Of the 804,928 total accidents that were the result of distracted driving in 2021, 64,901 (8%) were due to cell phone usage.

Between 2017 and 2021, 7% to 9% of auto crashes resulting in an injury and 6% to 8% of property-damage-only crashes involved a cell phone, according to the NHTSA. Despite the introduction of texting and hands-free bans nationwide, crash statistics highlight how common these distractions still are on the road.

NHTSA data shows that younger drivers tend to be the most distracted while on the road, especially those between ages 15 and 34. The 15- to 20-year-old age group had the highest proportion of distracted drivers involved in a fatal accident in 2021, at 7%. Similarly, this same age group had the highest proportion of drivers distracted by cell phone usage, at 17%.

According to this report, motor vehicle crashes cost the United States $340 billion in 2019. A whopping $98 billion of that total went to distracted-driving crashes. Examples of the economic costs of distracted-driving crashes include:

• Medical bills, including emergency room visits
• Legal fees
• Auto and medical insurance claims
• Property damage
• Lost productivity due to inability to work

These figures don’t capture the unimaginable cost of the lives lost to distracted-driving crashes. In 2021, 3,522 people died as a result of auto accidents involving distracted drivers, says the NHTSA, and over 360,000 were injured. Another 644 non-occupants (including pedestrians and cyclists) were killed in distracted-driving crashes.

Distracted Driving Stats and Facts

Driving distractions existed long before smartphones — almost anything can serve as a distraction. Below are additional statistics and figures from NHTSA that illustrate the prevalence of distracted driving:

• When tangible economic costs and quality-of-life costs (the intangible value that is lost as the result of serious injury or death) are taken into consideration, motor vehicle crashes cost the U.S. an estimated $1.37 trillion in 2019, $395 billion of which stemmed from crashes involving distracted driving.
• In 2021, distracted drivers were involved in the deaths of 644 pedestrians, cyclists and other people not in a vehicle.
• A staggering 71% of distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2021 were male.

Even with the advanced safety features found on most modern vehicles, distracted driving can cut lives short. Drivers are responsible for their safety as well as the safety of those around them.

Texting and Driving

It’s estimated that at any given moment, 7.6% of drivers on the road are using a smartphone while driving, according to data from a 2021 study. Using data from 3,000 drivers, several studies highlighted by the IIHS, including one by the IIHS and Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) and one by AAA, found that distracted driving increases the risk of a crash by two to six times compared to normal operating conditions. One study found that drivers who reported frequent cell phone usage while on the road exhibited more risky driving behaviors, including hard braking, speeding and abrupt lane changes, among others.

It’s difficult to know the exact number of crashes where cell phone use and other distractions were present. However, the auto industry has made efforts to limit distractions by including things like central infotainment centers, collision avoidance technology, voice commands and apps that limit or restrict smartphone use while driving.

Distracted Driving Laws

Many states rely on handheld device and texting bans to combat distracted driving:

• Handheld device bans: These bans allow the use of mobile devices while driving but allow them to be used in hands-free mode. Approved use includes voice communication or operation via one swipe or tap. In addition, some states clarify the ban to include reading, viewing or accessing non-navigational data.
• Texting bans: States that enforce a texting ban prohibit typing or sending a text while driving. However, talking on a hands-free device is permitted.

First responders and law enforcement remain exempt from these rules, as do drivers experiencing an emergency.

The following table represents individual state laws regarding distracted driving, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Bans, where present, distinguish a primary law, meaning a police officer can pull over and ticket drivers without any other traffic violations present.

The National Conference on State Legislatures (NCSL) estimates that over 220 million people in the U.S. subscribe to a wireless service, and as many as 80% use their cell phones while driving. No state laws exist that ban cell phone use for all drivers. However, over two-thirds of states prohibit smartphone use by teen drivers.

How Distracted Driving Affects Insurance Rates

According to our rate data, the national average cost for a year of full-coverage car insurance for drivers with a clean driving record was $2,008 in 2023, up 16% from $1,730 in 2022. However, causing an accident while driving distracted can add hundreds or more to your premiums, depending on which car insurance carrier and coverage levels you choose.

The average cost of full-coverage insurance for drivers with an accident on their record was $2,919 in 2023. This 45% average increase for those who get into an accident highlights the significant costs that can come with distracted driving. While comparing quotes from several affordable car insurance companies can help you find a good deal on your auto coverage, driving safely and maintaining a clean driving record is the best way to keep your insurance rates low.

How To Prevent Distracted Driving

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety surveyed over 2,800 people in 2020 and found that 96% agreed that using a cell phone to text or email while driving was extremely dangerous. However, 37% of those surveyed admitted to talking on the phone while driving, 34% said they read a text while driving and 23% had manually typed or sent an email or text while driving in the past 30 days. The NHTSA found that drivers exhibit poor judgment when identifying the markers of distracted driving, so awareness remains critical in effecting change.

Consider implementing the following tips by AAA to prevent distracted driving and putting yourself and those around you at risk:

Pull over at the next safest opportunity if you can’t devote your full attention to driving for any reason. Better yet, take care of any necessary business before or after you’ve begun driving to protect yourself and others on the road.

Expert Tips and Insights

Robert Rosenberger, Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy in the School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology

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See Also

What are the Most Common Types of Distractions While DrivingWHAT IS COGNITIVE DISTRACTION AND WHY IS IT SO DANGEROUS FOR DRIVERS? - Logan-Thompson, P.C.10 Most Common Causes of Distracted DrivingWhat Are the 3 Types of Distracted Driving? | Ankin Law 

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What advice would you give someone learning to drive or someone teaching a young driver?

Any additional non-driving thing that we do while behind the wheel — what the psychology researchers call an “off-task activity” — can potentially be dangerously distracting. However, I think that we need to have special concerns about using the phone while driving. We probably all know that handheld texting while driving is by far the most dangerous. But we should also refrain from having conversations on the phone, including even over a hands-free phone.

What are some potential dangers or consequences of distracted driving?

Not only can phone usage involve taking a hand off the wheel or eyes of the road, having a conversation with someone not there in the car involves taking your mind off the road ahead. The empirical researchers sometimes call this “cognitive distraction.” Put another way, phone conversation involves potentially dangerous multitasking. And an emotional or engrossing discussion can pull you into a dangerously distracted headspace.

What are a few ways to prevent or limit distractions while driving?

We should simply refrain from using the phone while driving, including texting, and handheld and hands-free phone conversation. Don’t let your own overconfidence fool you. And don’t let the fact that hands-free communication systems are built into our dashboards lead you to assume that they are safe. The surveys and studies show that we are poor judges of our level of phone-induced driving impairment. Everybody thinks the problem is with everyone else. But none of us are the exception.

Dr. Rosenberger is a professor of philosophy in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and is president of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. His monographs include “Callous Objects: Designs Against the Homeless” and the forthcoming “Distracted: A Philosophy of Cars and Phones.”

Weiwei Zhang, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychology, University of California, Riverside

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What advice would you give someone learning to drive or someone teaching a young driver?

Besides learning the driving skills, minimize all potential distracting information that is present in an automobile, just like one would childproof a house in anticipation of a newborn baby. Driving distraction can be from interior decoration items such as dashboard ornaments and rearview mirror hanging accessories.

More importantly … make sure that the new drivers understand the importance of staying vigilant and focus on the road.

What are some potential dangers or consequences of distracted driving?

Research in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience has abundantly demonstrated that our attention is rather limited to the extent that unattended information may not be consciously perceived, noticed, or remembered. Therefore, it is extremely important to focus on vital information while driving.

As reported by Redelmeier and Tibshirani in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1997, “The risk of a collision when using a cellular phone was four times higher than the risk when a cellular phone was not being used,” and “… motor vehicle collisions result from a driver’s limitations with regard to attention rather than dexterity”.

What are a few ways to prevent or limit distractions while driving?

Have an internal mental check on [your] own vigilance from time to time. To avoid mind wandering while driving, occasionally read the road signs.

Dr. Zhang received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Nankai University in 1997, a master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience from Beijing University in 2000 and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Iowa in 2007. After completing a National Research Service Award (NRSA) postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, Davis, he joined faculty at the department of psychology at the University of California, Riverside in 2012.

Katherine Moore, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychology, Arcadia University

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What advice would you give someone learning to drive or someone teaching a young driver?

If you’re teaching someone to drive, remember that what is automatic for you requires focused attention for someone who is new. There is a lot to pay attention to all at once — steering, acceleration, the road ahead, street signs, traffic lights, pedestrians, bikers, obstacles and navigation. Start small (parking lots, low traffic streets, etc.) and then build up to busier and more challenging settings. At the same time, remember that your student won’t improve unless they practice, so parents — please don’t let your own worries get in the way of your child’s skill development!

What are some potential dangers or consequences of distracted driving?

Distracted driving increases your risk of crash and death. Even if you’re willing to risk your own safety, keep in mind that you put other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists at risk when you are distracted. On a more mundane level, distracted driving causes us to miss turns, get lost or aggravate fellow drivers (e.g. when you slow down or fail to move along when a light turns green.) One thing to keep in mind is that people are very bad at multitasking in general, and are also bad at their metacognition about multitasking — we always think we’re better at it than we actually are. In very easy driving conditions, it often is possible to multitask without consequence. The problem is that the costs are huge when driving conditions change, and this can happen suddenly and unpredictably. We are lulled into a sense of safety in engaging in distractions until it’s too late.

What are a few ways to prevent or limit distractions while driving?

The biggest distraction that we experience when driving is a cell phone. Any phone use poses a risk of crash, but texting is far riskier than a hands-free phone call. If phone use during a drive is absolutely necessary, the best practice is to pull over completely. Using a device connected to the car through bluetooth (e.g. CarPlay) is less safe, but okay. However, we should consider whether phone use during a drive is absolutely necessary. In most cases, the call/text can wait. Plan your trips ahead of time so that you won’t need to look up an address while on the road. Set your phone to automatically respond to texts with, “I’m driving right now, so I can’t read your message.” Navigating in a new location can also be distracting. If you need to examine your directions, it’s safest to stop and pull over.

Dr. Moore has been with Arcadia University since 2015. She teaches Behavioral Neuroscience, Psychology of Music, Sensation and Perception, Cross-Cultural Psychology, and Senior Seminar. As head of the Attention, Memory, and Cognition laboratory, Dr. Moore’s research projects explore the limits of attention, the relationship among attention, perception and memory and how expertise or context affect these processes. Most of her work is in the visual domain, but she also studies music cognition and synesthesia. Dr. Moore earned her B.A. in cognitive science in 2003 at University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Michigan in 2010. Prior to coming to Arcadia, Dr. Moore was an assistant professor at Elmhurst College, and was a postdoctoral associate at Yale University.

Shaun Vecera, Ph.D.

Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Science, The University of Iowa

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What advice would you give someone learning to drive or someone teaching a young driver?

Driving is a skill, and learning to drive is no different from learning other skills, such as learning to touch type or learning a musical instrument. Practice is critical, but that practice should be scaffolded — starting with driving in easier, less demanding situations and becoming progressively more challenging. The practice should also be intentional and have some target outcomes or goals. Those goals could be as straightforward as practicing left-hand turns across traffic or practicing parallel parking. Instruction should also [include] how to focus on driving, with a skilled driver or other instructor pointing out possible risks or challenge areas, but also asking learning drivers to report what hazards or challenges they are anticipating.

What are some potential dangers or consequences of distracted driving?

Distracted driving has been studied extensively, mostly investigating the role of a cell phone conversation on driving performance. There are a few important conclusions from this large research literature. First, cell phone conversations affect many aspects of driving, from relatively basic lane-keeping to the time to start braking in response to an event. Second, holding a phone is not the main cause of deteriorated driving. Driving also deteriorates when a driver has a conversation with a hands-free phone. I like to say that hands-free does not mean brain-free. The main cause of deteriorated driving during a cell phone conversation is multitasking — trying to do more than one task at a time. Trying to have a cell phone conversation or text while driving will pull the driver’s attention away from driving and to the conversation. With less attention to the car and road, driving performance declines. Drivers are slower to respond to hazards, and will often not remember details of their drive if they have been distracted.

What are a few ways to prevent or limit distractions while driving?

For most drivers, cell phones are probably the largest source of distractions. But there are many potential distractions — the friends in your car if you’re a younger driver or the donut you’re trying to eat in between sips of coffee if you’re a commuter. To minimize these distractions, drivers should practice mindful driving: know what potential distractions you might face and correct those before they can be distracting. Turn the phone off or eat the donut in the parking lot before you pull into traffic.

That’s easier said than done, though, because each of us is very good at convincing ourselves that we’re the exception to the rule. The challenge of managing distractions is even harder because most distractions are social — the person you’re texting or the friends in the car. Those social interactions are very rewarding, and that reward is almost immediate, happening during the conversation. The accident that a distracted driver might have is vague and in the future, if it happens at all. So, it’s very easy to prioritize the immediate social interaction for its reward over the alternatives.

Dr. Vecera graduated from the University of Oregon before moving to Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1995. He has been a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa since 1998 and became director of the University Honors Program in 2021. Professor Vecera studies visual attention and cognition and is the author of more than 90 journal articles, book chapters and other publications on his research. Current research in his lab is exploring the role of learning and experience on attentional control.

Paul Atchley, Ph.D.

Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of South Florida

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What advice would you give someone learning to drive or someone teaching a young driver?

I think if someone’s learning to drive or teaching a young driver, they need to remember one statistic — that you’re more likely to die in a car crash at [a young] age than the next three causes of death combined. Driving is the singularly most risky thing that we do, and particularly for younger drivers, it’s the riskiest thing that they’ll face in their life. So you need to remind yourself every time you get in a car, you could potentially hurt yourself or someone else if you make a mistake and you aren’t completely focused on the task at hand.

What are some potential dangers or consequences of distracted driving?

Distractions can come from lots of sources, but what we’re seeing and we’ve seen for the last 20 years is that phones are taking up even more of our time when we drive. So the risk of distractions from phones is that it takes your attention away from the roadway. You need your attention in order to be able to process all of the hazards that are potentially around you from moment to moment, and a brief lapse of attention can reduce your ability to do that.

One of the greatest risks is what we call inattention blindness, where your mind is on the phone and what’s happening on the phone. Even if your eyes are still on the road, your brain’s not processing what it’s seeing. And I’ve seen lots of videos, because I’ve been doing this work for a really long time, of people driving down the road, looking straight ahead, but talking on the phone and completely missing stop signs, sometimes running into cars, trucks or other people. So if your mind is not on the road, your mind fails to process the risks of the road. And since it is the riskiest thing that we do, it can lead to really bad consequences.

What are a few ways to prevent or limit distractions while driving?

Honestly, the best way is just turn off your phone while you’re driving. I know that sounds hard for folks, but I’d use this example. There’s a company that puts cameras in cars and when their engineers saw how many people were getting into crashes when they’re using their phones, those engineers started to put their phones in the trunk because they recognize how risky it is. I would say the easiest thing to do is to use a do not disturb mode on your phone when you’re driving.

For example, Apple phones have a drive mode which will silence all of those notifications that your phone is constantly trying to give you and just drive. You can use your phone for GPS. That’s not a bad thing if you program the GPS ahead of time. But don’t be tempted to look at it to see what messages you got or those other kinds of things because, again, it just takes a brief lapse of attention and suddenly a tragedy happens.

Dr. Atchley has been conducting research and teaching about cognitive factors related to driving for over 25 years. He is currently on faculty at the University of South Florida. Dr. Atchley received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside in 1996 and completed postdoctoral training at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois in 1998. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters on issues of vision and attention, including their relationship to driving. He has also received awards for his service, research, teaching and student advising.