As millions of Americans hit the roadways this summer, it’s time to be especially aware of distracted drivers.
According to Distraction.gov, distracted driving involves “any activity that could divert a person's attention away from the primary task of driving” — everything from eating and drinking to using a navigation system to checking digital devices.
When I lived in Washington, D.C. — land of the most distracted drivers on Earth — I saw people do nutty things on the Beltway: applying makeup, reading books and newspapers, working on computers and participating in online conferences, and, of course, texting.
Texting continues to be the most dangerous distraction.
According to the latest CTIA data, Americans exchanged nearly 2.2 trillion texts in 2024 — and surveys show that millions of them were sent and read while behind the wheel.
The latest National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS) shows that, whereas fewer people are talking on their phones, many more are visibly manipulating their digital devices — a number that has more than doubled since 2015.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that young drivers, ages 16 to 24, are distracted by digital devices at much higher rates than older drivers.
All told, digital-device distractions cause approximately 1.6 million crashes and hundreds of thousands of injuries each year — including 3,208 deaths in 2024 alone.
Which means we drivers need to knock it off.
How many studies do we have to do to finally realize how dangerous it is to let digital devices distract us as we drive?
Carnegie Mellon University found that using a digital device while driving — even just listening to a hands-free conversation — reduces activity in the brain’s parietal lobe by 37 percent.
Since the parietal lobe handles spatial awareness, processes what drivers see around them and helps them judge where their car is in relation to everything else on the road, distracted drivers are at greater risk of missing hazards, drifting out of their lanes, misjudging distances and reacting more slowly to sudden changes in traffic.
In other words, distracted driving is equivalent to driving at night with one eye closed and the dashboard lights turned off.
Here's another troubling finding: According to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, texting while driving diverts your eyes from the road for an average of five seconds. At 55 mph, that's enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded.
You'd think it would be simple common sense — that people would know better than to try to text and drive or take cellphone calls while they're roaring down a highway at a high rate of speed — but that isn't the case.
You'd think there would be no need for new laws and penalties to punish and prevent distracted driving, but unfortunately, there is.
Every day, newspaper headlines feature tragedies that involve distracted drivers — and the subsequent manslaughter lawsuits that many of these drivers face. It’s all heartbreaking and totally unnecessary.
That is why many people — people like me who are otherwise wary of our government — agree that state and local governments need to crack down on this matter until a thickheaded public finally grasps the seriousness of using digital devices while driving.
So be careful when you hit the roadways this summer — careful to avoid a growing number of drivers oblivious to the dangers of distracted driving.
Find Tom Purcell’s syndicated column, humor books, and funny videos of his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.