Distracted driving is the act of operating a vehicle while engaged in other activities that take your mind, your eyes, or your hands away from your focus on driving. Distractions may include eating, reading or changing the radio station while driving. Particularly alarming, is the use of cell phones while driving since texting, surfing the web and talking can visually, manually and cognitively distract drivers.
All facts listed below are pulled from Distraction.gov, or the AAA Foundation:
Each day in the United States, over 8 people are killed and 1,161 injured in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver.
In 2014, 3,179 people were killed, and 431,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers.
Ten percent of all drivers 15 to 19 years old involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted at the time of the crashes. This age group has the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted at the time of the crashes.
At any given daylight moment across America, approximately 660,000 drivers are using cell phones or manipulating electronic devices while driving, a number that has held steady since 2010.
Ten percent of fatal crashes, eighteen percent of injury crashes, and sixteen percent of all police-reported motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2013 were reported as distraction affected crashes.
Distracting events include "latency". Texting while stopped at a traffic light can negatively affectfull driving engagement once the light turns green for an average of 27 seconds after you've stopped texting.
These organizations have made a commitment to informing the public about the dangers of distracted driving. To learn more, please visit, share and follow these webpages. It's the first step toward getting involved and becoming a safer driver.
Official U.S. Goverment Website for Distracted Driving
Governor's Highway Safety Association - Distracted Driving
Center for Disease Control and Prevention - Distracted Driving
National Safety Council - Distracted Driving
Stop the Texts, Stop the Wrecks
While we include many key facts on this page, countless studies identify the dangers of distracted driving.
Pew Research Center - Teens and Distracted Driving
NHTSA - Driver Distraction Research: Past, Present, and Future
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration - Distracted Driving
GHSA - Curbing Distracted Driving: 2013 Survey of State Safety Programs
AAA Foundation - Measuring Cognitive Distraction in the Automobile III
National Safety Council - Understanding the Distracted Brain
Fourteen (14) states prohibit ALL drivers from using hand-held cell phones while driving and forty-six (46) states ban texting while driving for ALL drivers. Thirty-eight (38) states ban all cell phone use by novice drivers. What is the law in your state?
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