Phones can help with navigation on roadtrips, but they can also be dangerous distractions. A new study shows just how big that distraction is among teen drivers, and the number one reason the phones are used has nothing to do with directions.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, looking at your phone for just five seconds while driving at 55 mph (88.5 km/h) is the equivalent of driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed. The agency also reports that approximately 324,819 people were involved in distracted-driving-related crashes in 2023, leading to 3,275 deaths. That works out to a shocking 890 incidents each day related to driving while distracted.
Seeking to examine distracted driving issues more deeply in the teen segment, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital had over 1,100 teen drivers in the United States complete a 38-item questionnaire about their phone use while driving. They also conducted in-person interviews with 20 high school drivers. The results were sobering.
Even though most of the teens polled understood the dangers of distracted driving, they reported spending 21.1% of each car trip they take using their phone. Put another way, that means young people are looking at their phones for about one out of every five minutes they are driving. What's more, 26.5% of them said they look at their phone for two seconds or longer each time – kind of like closing their eyes every five minutes for about 150 ft (46 m) while driving at 55 mph.
Even more surprising are the reasons why the teens polled reported looking at their phones behind the wheel: 65% of the time it was for entertainment purposes; 40% of the time it was for texting; and 30% of the time was for navigation.
“Driving distracted doesn’t just put the driver at risk of injury or death; it puts everyone else on the road in danger of an accident,” said study lead author Rebecca Robbins. “The findings from the study give us insights into the perceptions and beliefs from teenage drivers, which can be used to help create effective interventions to prevent distracted driving.”
Those interventions, say the researchers, could include setting phones to "Do Not Disturb" mode or putting phones out of reach while driving.
The study authors acknowledge the relatively small size of the study and the interviews conducted but say their methods could be a valuable framework to use for expanded research.
“In addition, we excluded schools in urban areas during the qualitative phase, given the lower prevalence of driver’s licenses in these regions,” the authors wrote. “Thus, our results may need to be replicated among urban adolescent drivers to ensure broader applicability.”
The study has been published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.
Sources: Taylor and Francis Group; Mass General Brigham
