6 Texting and Driving Statistics You Probably Don’t Know
Posted on Sat Jul 03, 2021
1. Every year, more than 3,100 Americans are killed in distracted driving accidents.
The most recent complete data is from 2019. More than 3,100 people were killed, and more than 400,000 individuals were injured as a result of distracted driving. In Alabama, car accidents account for a large number of annual deaths (21.3 per 100,000). This is enough to rank as second-worst in the country. Estimates show that more than 10 percent of traffic accidents are the result of distracted driving.
2. It takes 5 seconds to read a text message.
According to the US Department of Transportation, it takes an average of 5 seconds to read a text (https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/distracted-driving). That means that texting and driving requires a driver to take their eyes off the road while their vehicle covers the full length of a football field.
How scary is that? Every text message is the equivalent of driving with your eyes closed for five seconds.
3. Car accidents are one of the most common causes of death for teenagers.
Motor vehicle crashes are the second leading cause of death for U.S. teens. About seven teens aged 13–19 die every day from motor vehicle crash injuries. Per mile driven, teen drivers aged 16–19 are nearly three times as likely as drivers aged 20 or older to be in a fatal crash. https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/teen_drivers/index.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fmotorvehiclesafety%2Fteen_drivers%2Findex.html
In 2019, almost 2,400 teens in the United States aged 13–19 were killed, and about 258,000 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor vehicle crashes. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teenagers
4. Teenage boys are twice as likely to die in a car accident than teenage girls.
In 2019, the motor vehicle death rate for male drivers aged 16–19 was over two times higher than the death rate for female drivers of the same age.
5. Texting and driving are more dangerous than drinking and driving.
According to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, you are six times more likely to be in a motor vehicle crash while driving if you’re texting, versus if you were intoxicated.
Texting while driving gives the driver the same response time as a person who has drunk four beers in a single hour.
6. About 1 in 5 people who die in crashes involving distracted drivers are not in vehicles.
