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Do we have your undivided attention?

Federal government fortifies its anti-distracted-driving message

The very bad news is that 39,345 people lost their lives in crashes in 2024. The slightly more encouraging news, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is that that number is about 3.8% lower than the 2023 figure of 40,901 and the first time since 2020 that the number of traffic deaths fell below 40,000.

But that modest drop is cold comfort for most, as the toll is still unacceptably far from zero. NHTSA hopes to eventually get much closer to that as it continues to push for greater awareness and prevention of distracted driving and for fleets to implement their own policies to combat such unsafe on-road practices.

At NHTSA’s kickoff for its annual “Put the Phone Away or Pay” campaign last month, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation Stephen G. Bradbury noted that official statistics put the number of fatalities directly attributable to distracted driving at approximately 10% of all traffic deaths. The data also estimates that more than 300,000 injuries are the direct result of distracted driving. But those are just the ones that are officially reported as such. Bradbury estimated that the number of distraction-related deaths could be as high as 30% of total fatalities and injuries could be as high as 1.3 million.

In addition to the human toll, NHTSA estimates that distraction-related crashes result in nearly $100 billion in economic costs each year.

“There’s always been distraction … but these days the, in the era of smartphones, the problem is getting more acute,” Bradbury said in his remarks at the kickoff event. “Americans love their smartphones, they’re locked into their phones and that’s especially true of our younger drivers. It’s really a problem for the young generation and new drivers, but all Americans suffer from the distractions of their ubiquitous phones.”

The “Put the Phone Away or Pay” campaign reminds drivers of the life-threatening dangers and legal consequences of distracted driving. Scrolling social media, texting, looking up an address and changing a musical playlist or podcast, and adjusting the GPS are just a few of the culprits that can cause fatal crashes.

Texting, or even simply just reading a text, can take a driver’s eyes off the road for around five seconds, which can be a devastating impairment at 55 to 65 miles per hour.

“So, what’s the solution?” Bradbury said. “Well, one long-term solution is technology. Automated driving systems and the safety enhancements that they can create, we hope, in the long run, will drive that 40,000-person number down closer to zero, which is the long-term goal.”

Many modern collision-avoidance systems have distraction-related functions built in to them, including things like lane-departure warnings and technology that detects when drivers’ eyes have been diverted away from the road.

“But in the meantime,” Bradbury continued, “we really need an emphasis on education and enforcement.”

To date, 49 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands have implemented laws that ban texting while driving. Some states, such as Colorado and Michigan, have enacted laws requiring hands-free device use while driving.

“Mindful, fully attentive driving is our responsibility,” NHTSA chief counsel Peter Simshauser said at the event last month. “It’s the considerate thing to do, it’s the courteous thing to do and with everybody else on the road, it’s the patriotic thing to do. And we urge everyone to do it because distraction is 100% preventable and the consequences of distracted driving inevitably will lead to at least some catastrophic outcomes.”