Distracted driving statistics describe two different realities: reported crash outcomes and observed or self-reported behavior. In the United States, NHTSA reported 3,308 distracted-driving deaths and an estimated 289,310 injuries in 2022, while CDC surveys and naturalistic studies show how often distraction occurs in specific populations and driving samples.
Key Distracted Driving Statistics
The most important figures span fatal crashes, injuries, youth behavior and observed driving exposure:
- In 2022, 3,308 people died in U.S. crashes involving distracted driving.
- In 2022, an estimated 289,310 people were injured in distracted-driving crashes in the United States.
- In 2022, 621 pedestrians, cyclists or other vulnerable road users died in distraction-affected crashes in the United States.
- In 2021, NHTSA estimated 3,522 distracted-driving fatalities, or 8% of all U.S. traffic fatalities.
- In 2019, 39.0% of U.S. high-school students who drove in the prior 30 days texted or emailed while driving on at least one day.
- In 2019, 15.5% of 14-year-old U.S. student drivers texted or emailed while driving.
- In 2019, 50.9% of 17-year-old U.S. student drivers texted or emailed while driving.
- In 2019, 59.5% of U.S. student drivers age 18 or older texted or emailed while driving.
- In 2017, 59.3% of U.S. 12th-grade student drivers reported texting while driving.
- In 2019, 43.9% of White U.S. student drivers texted or emailed while driving.
- In 2019, 29.5% of Black U.S. student drivers texted or emailed while driving.
- In 2019, 35.2% of Hispanic U.S. student drivers texted or emailed while driving.
- Across 36 U.S. state surveys in 2017, student-driver texting prevalence ranged from 27.4% to 55.2%.
- Across 19 large U.S. urban school-district surveys in 2017, student-driver texting prevalence ranged from 18.0% to 36.6%.
- In the SHRP 2 naturalistic study, observable distraction was involved in 68.3% of 905 analyzed crashes.
- In the same study, drivers engaged in potentially distracting activities during 51.93% of baseline driving periods.
- The SHRP 2 study estimated that eliminating distraction could potentially avoid 36% of U.S. crashes, a model-based estimate rather than a directly observed count.
Contents
- Key Distracted Driving Statistics
- National Distracted Driving Crash and Fatality Data
- Distracted Driving Injuries and Vulnerable Road Users
- Teen Texting While Driving Statistics by Age and Grade
- Distracted Driving Statistics by Race, Sex and Student Subgroup
- Distracted Driving Trends and Associated Behaviors
- Naturalistic and Roadside Studies of Distraction Prevalence and Risk
National Distracted Driving Crash and Fatality Data
National crash figures measure reported outcomes, not every instance of distraction. NHTSA notes that distraction is likely underreported because it depends on law-enforcement reporting and available evidence after a crash.
| Period | Measure | United States result |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Estimated distracted-driving fatalities | 3,522; 8% of all traffic fatalities |
| 2022 | Distracted-driving deaths | 3,308 |
| 2022 | Estimated distracted-driving injuries | 289,310 people |
NHTSA’s 2022 traffic-deaths release reports the 2022 death and injury figures. The 2021 figure is an estimate from NHTSA’s Distracted Driving Data/Surveillance chapter, so it should not be read as a directly observed census of all distracted driving.
Among drivers ages 15–20 involved in fatal crashes in 2019, 9% were distracted at the time of the crash. That is a fatal-crash driver measure, not the share of all young drivers who were distracted.
Distracted Driving Injuries and Vulnerable Road Users
The 2022 NHTSA data quantify both injury burden and deaths among people outside the vehicle. The estimated 289,310 injuries are specific to distracted-driving crashes and are not a count of injuries from all crash causes.
- Distraction-affected crashes killed 621 pedestrians, cyclists or other vulnerable road users in the United States in 2022.
- The 621 vulnerable-road-user deaths were a subgroup within the 3,308 total distracted-driving deaths reported for 2022, not an additional total.
These outcomes show why distracted-driving data matter beyond vehicle occupants. They also illustrate why crash-reporting statistics and behavior surveys should be kept separate: one describes consequences recorded after crashes, while the other describes reported behavior among selected respondents.
Teen Texting While Driving Statistics by Age and Grade
CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey measures self-reported texting or emailing while driving during the prior 30 days among students who drove. In 2019, 59.9% of surveyed U.S. high-school students were classified as having driven during that period, although CDC called this an approximation because driving prevalence was not directly captured.
| 2019 student-driver group | Texted or emailed while driving |
|---|---|
| Age 14 | 15.5% |
| Age 16 | 30.5% |
| Age 17 | 50.9% |
| Age 18 or older | 59.5% |
| All student drivers | 39.0% |
The age pattern is descriptive, not a causal estimate. The CDC 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey report defines the denominator and records the self-reported 30-day behavior.
Grade-level figures from earlier survey years show a similar spread, but the years are not interchangeable:
- In 2017, 12.9% of 9th-grade student drivers reported texting while driving, compared with 24.5% of 10th-grade drivers, 45.5% of 11th-grade drivers and 59.3% of 12th-grade drivers.
- In 2015, 15.9% of 9th-grade student drivers and 61.4% of 12th-grade student drivers reported texting or emailing while driving.
The CDC 2017 surveillance report and CDC 2015 surveillance report use self-reported behavior in the preceding 30 days. The 2015, 2017 and 2019 measures should therefore be compared cautiously because the survey years and tables differ.
Distracted Driving Statistics by Race, Sex and Student Subgroup
The 2019 CDC survey reported different texting-or-emailing prevalence estimates among student-driver race groups. These are subgroup estimates, not explanations for why the rates differ.
| 2019 subgroup of U.S. student drivers | Texted or emailed while driving |
|---|---|
| White | 43.9% |
| Black | 29.5% |
| Hispanic | 35.2% |
The survey also reported related transportation-risk measures among students with mostly C/D/F grades. These figures should not be relabeled as distracted-driving prevalence: 57.0% did not always wear a seat belt, 20.1% rode with a drinking driver, and 7.4% of student drivers drove after drinking alcohol.
In 2017, texting or emailing while driving was reported by 39.5% of heterosexual student drivers, 38.1% of gay, lesbian or bisexual student drivers, and 35.9% of student drivers unsure of their sexual identity. The same report recorded 55.6% among female student drivers with sexual contact only with males and 50.7% among male student drivers with sexual contact only with females.
These sensitive subgroup classifications come from different CDC survey tables and years. They should be read as measured associations within the named populations, not as universal rates for every driver.
Distracted Driving Trends and Associated Behaviors
National student-driver texting prevalence changed from 41.4% in 2013 to 39.2% in 2017, while the 2015 value was 41.5%. CDC found no significant linear trend and described the 2015–2017 change as not statistically significant.
| Survey geography, 2017 | Range among student-driver surveys | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 36 U.S. states | 27.4%–55.2% | 39.3% |
| 19 large urban school districts | 18.0%–36.6% | 31.4% |
The state and district results are not population-weighted national estimates, and implementation may differ. They are useful for showing variation across surveyed locations, not for ranking jurisdictions.
CDC also reported associations between texting while driving and other transportation behaviors in 2019:
- Students who did not always wear a seat belt were 1.29 times as likely to text while driving as students who always wore one.
- Students who had ridden with a drinking driver were 1.50 times as likely to text while driving as students who had not.
- Student drivers who had driven after drinking alcohol were 2.38 times as likely to text while driving as those who had not.
These are self-reported, cross-sectional associations, not causal effects. The source is the CDC 2019 transportation-risk report.
Naturalistic and Roadside Studies of Distraction Prevalence and Risk
Naturalistic research records driving behavior in instrumented vehicles, while roadside observation records visible behavior in a particular setting. Neither method is directly equivalent to NHTSA’s crash-reporting categories.
The SHRP 2 naturalistic study analyzed 3,542 drivers across six U.S. data-collection sites and collected more than 35 million miles of continuous driving data. Its sample intentionally oversampled drivers under 25 and over 65, so the volume of data does not make it nationally representative.
Among 905 injurious or property-damage crashes, the study found:
- At least one error, impairment or distraction factor in 87.7% of crashes.
- Some type of driver error in 73.7% of crashes.
- Observable distraction in 68.3% of crashes.
- Both error and distraction in 54.5% of crashes.
- Vehicle failure in 0.1% of crashes.
The categories overlap; their percentages must not be added. Minor no-damage collisions and near-crashes were excluded, and the study’s video-defined distraction is not directly equivalent to police-report coding.
During baseline driving periods, participants engaged in potentially distracting activities during 51.93% of driving. Overall distraction risk was 2.0 times model driving risk within the study’s comparison model.
The SHRP 2 authors estimated that eliminating distraction could potentially avoid 36% of U.S. crashes, or about 4 million of nearly 11 million annual crashes. This is a model-based population-attributable estimate, not a directly observed preventable count; see the peer-reviewed SHRP 2 naturalistic-driving study.
Earlier studies cited in a peer-reviewed roadside review reported distracting activity during approximately 31% of moving time among 70 participants in North Carolina and Philadelphia metro areas, secondary behaviors during approximately 34% of driving time among 36 Ann Arbor drivers, and driving-related inattention during 44% of observed driving in the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study in Northern Virginia and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. These small or study-specific samples are not interchangeable with national prevalence estimates; the review is The prevalence of distraction among passenger vehicle drivers.
NHTSA also cites an Iowa naturalistic study containing 1,691 crashes involving drivers ages 16–19. In a separate international comparison, in-depth fatal-crash investigations in Norway found driver inattention contributed to almost one-third of at-fault crashes from 2011–2015; that result uses a different country, investigation system and inattention definition, as described in NHTSA’s data-surveillance chapter.