Texting while driving, also called texting and driving, is the act of composing, sending, or reading text messages on a mobile phone while operating a motor vehicle. Texting while driving is considered extremely dangerous by many people, including authorities, and in some places has either been outlawed or restricted. As a form of distracted driving, texting while driving significantly increases the chances that a driver will be involved in a motor vehicle accident.
Prevalence Research by the NHTSA suggests that, in the United States in 2021, at any given daylight moment, an estimated 660,000, out of almost 212 million licensed drivers, used their phones while driving. According to a report issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation, drivers between the ages of 20 and 29 are the most likely to text while driving. In 2010 the International Telecommunication Union said that "texting, making calls, and other interaction with in-vehicle information and communication systems while driving is a serious source of driver distraction and increases the risk of traffic accidents".Adolph, Martin. "Decreasing Driver Distraction." International Telecommunication Union. August 2010. In 2022, 3,308 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in the U.S. In the United Kingdom, according to the latest Reported Road Casualties Great Britain (2022), 22 people were killed and 674 injured in road traffic collisions where a driver using a mobile phone was considered to be a contributory factor.
Research As a form of distracted driving, texting while driving significantly increases the chances that a driver will be involved in a motor vehicle accident.
The scientific literature on the dangers of driving while sending a text message from a mobile phone, or driving while texting, is limited but growing. A simulation study at the Monash University Accident Research Center provided strong evidence that retrieving and, in particular, sending text messages has a detrimental effect on a number of safety-critical driving measures. Specifically, negative effects were seen in detecting and responding correctly to road signs, detecting hazards, time spent with eyes off the road, and (only for sending text messages) lateral position. Mean speed, speed variability, lateral position when receiving text messages, and following distance showed no difference. A separate, yet unreleased simulation study at the University of Utah found a sixfold increase in distraction-related crashes when texting.
The low number of scientific studies may be indicative of a general assumption that if talking on a mobile phone increases risk, then texting also increases risk, and probably more so. 89% of U.S. adults think that text messaging while driving is "distracting, dangerous and should be outlawed". The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has released polling data that show that 87% of people consider texting and e-mailing while driving a "very serious" safety threat, almost equivalent to the 90% of those polled who consider drunk driving a threat. Recently, AAA released a study showing texting while driving is six times more likely to cause an accident than drunk driving.
Despite the acknowledgement of the dangers of texting behind the wheel, about half of drivers 16 to 24 say they have texted while driving, compared with 22 percent of drivers 35 to 44. A survey of more than 90 teens from more than 26 high schools throughout the United States conducted by Liberty Mutual Insurance Group in 2006 showed that 46% of students consider texting to be either "very" or "extremely" distracting. An American Automobile Association study showed that 34% of teens (age 16–17) admitted to being distracted behind the wheel because of texting and 40% of American teens say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put people in danger. A study involving commercial vehicle operators conducted in September 2009 concluded that though incidence of texting within their data set was low, texting while driving increased the risk of accident significantly.
Texting while driving received greater attention in the late 2000s, corresponding to a rise in the number of text messages being sent. The 2008 Will Smith film Seven Pounds deals with Smith's character committing suicide in order to donate his organs to help save the lives of seven people to make up for the seven people he killed in a car accident because he was receiving a text message while he was driving. Texting while driving attracted interest in the media after several highly publicized car crashes were caused by texting drivers, including a May 2009 incident involving a Boston trolley car driver who crashed while texting his girlfriend. Texting was blamed in the 2008 Chatsworth train collision which killed 25 passengers. Investigations revealed that the engineer of that train had sent 45 text messages while operating. Despite these incidents, texting was still on the rise.
A July 2010 Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll found 25% of New Jersey voters admitted to sending a text while driving, which was an increase from 15% in 2008. This increase could be attributed to drivers over the age of 30 sending text messages. More than 35% of New Jersey drivers aged 30 to 45 and 17% of drivers over 45 admitted to having sent a text message while driving in the last year, an increase of 5–10% from 2008.
Several studies have attempted to compare the dangers of texting while driving with driving under the influence. One such study was conducted by Car and Driver magazine in June 2009. The study, carried out at the Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport in Oscoda, Michigan, used two drivers in real cars and measured reaction times to the onset of light on the windshield. The study compared the reaction times and distances of the subjects while reading a text message, replying to the text message, and impaired. The study showed that at , reading a text message increased the reaction time the most, 0.12 and 0.87 seconds. Impaired driving at the same speed resulted in an increase of 0.01 and 0.07 seconds. In terms of stopping distances these times were estimated to mean: Unimpaired: 0.54 seconds to brake Legally drunk: add Reading e-mail: add Sending a text: add On September 29, 2010, the insurance industry's Highway Loss Data Institute released research purporting to show that texting-while-driving bans in four states failed to reduce crashes and may instead have contributed to an increase in road crashes. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called the study "completely misleading".
In March 2012, the UK's Institute of Advanced Motorists published a study which claimed that using social media puts a driver at greater risk than driving under the influence. In 2013, based on the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System Survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control in the US, nearly half of all male and female respondents aged 16 to 19 reported they texted while driving.
In 2013, the National Safety Council estimated there were about 1.4 million crashes in the US involving cell phone use. Their model predicted text messaging was involved in 6–16% of all car accidents in the US. In 2010, texting while driving among young drivers was named a disease burden and ranked 8th overall in the global years of life lost (YLL). The premature mortality of young drivers who crash as a result of distracted driving has a greater effect on YLL than most diseases do.
Research by the Transport Research Laboratory showed that texting while driving slowed a driver's reaction time more so than drinking alcohol or using drugs. Drivers' reaction times decreased by 46% while making a call, 37% when texting and driving, and 27% during hands-free calls. Those who were drinking and driving at the limit of 80 mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, reaction times slowed by 13% and 21% for those under the influence of cannabis.
A study in 2021 by the University of Buffalo revealed that a similar habit, texting while walking, causes more injuries than texting while driving.
In November 2014, Sawyer et al., from the University of Central Florida and the US Air Force Research Laboratory, published the results of comparative study in a driving simulator. Messages sent through Google Glass posed a decreased distraction but still impaired drivers.Sawyer, B.D., Finomore, V.S., Calvo, A.A. and Hancock, P.A., "Google Glass: A Driver Distraction Cause or Cure?" in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, November 2014, 56: pp.1307-1321, doi:10.1177/0018720814555723
In October 2016, Texas A&M Transportation Institute and Aceable Driving published a study showing that teenagers are more likely to witness their parents or legal guardians driving distracted than their friends and peers. The study also suggested that texting and driving bans are somewhat effective. In Austin, Texas, where a hands-free-driving ordinance prohibiting the use of electronic hand-held devices while operating a vehicle or bicycle has been in place since 2015, 41% of teens reported that they never witnessed their parents or guardians driving distracted. In Houston, Texas, which had no ban on hand-held devices during the time of the study, only 23% of teens said the same.
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study On July 27, 2009, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) released preliminary findings of their study of driver distraction in commercial vehicles. Several naturalistic driving studies, of long-haul trucks as well as lighter vehicles driving six million combined miles, used video cameras to observe the drivers and road. Researchers observed 4,452 "safety-critical" events, which includes crashes, near crashes, safety-critical events, and lane deviations. 81% of the "safety-critical" events involved some type of driver distraction. Text messaging had the greatest relative risk, with drivers of heavy vehicles or trucks being more than 23 times more likely to experience a safety-critical event when texting.
The study found that drivers typically take their eyes off the forward roadway for an average of four out of six seconds when texting, and an average of 4.6 out of the six seconds surrounding safety-critical events. The study revealed that when traveling at , a driver texting for 6 seconds is looking at the phone for 4.6 seconds of that time and travels the distance of a football field without their eyes on the road. Some of VTTI's conclusions from this study included that "texting should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers", and that "all cell phone use should be banned for newly licensed teen drivers". The results of the study are listed in the table below.
+ Risk increases of cell phone tasks by vehicle type Type of vehicleCell phone task Risk of crash or near event crash(compared to non-distracted driving)Light Vehicle Dialing 2.8 times as high Talking/Listening 1.3 times as highReaching for object (e.g. electronic device) 1.4 times as highHeavy Vehicles/Trucks Dialing 5.9 times as highTalking/Listening 1.0 times as high Reach for electronic device 6.7 times as high Text messaging 23.2 times as high
Distracted vs. impaired driving A 2010 experiment with Car and Driver magazine editor Eddie Alterman, which took place at a deserted air strip, showed that texting while driving had a worse impact on safety than driving while intoxicated. The Institute of Industrial Engineers concluded that drivers are 20 times more likely to be involved in a crash while texting and driving as opposed to driving while intoxicated.