1. Prevalence of Distracted Driving
Brian Jonah
CARSP

2. Overview Definition of distracted driving
Distracted driving in collisions
Observational surveys of distracted driving
Public opinion surveys of distracted driving
Relative risk of collisions while distracted

3. Definition of Distracted Driving
Driver diverts attention from driving task to focus on some other activity such as:
Talking to passengers, adjusting radio, eating/drinking, looking at signs
Using cell or smart phone or other electronic devices (e.g., GPS, infotainment)
Main interest today is use of electronic devices whether original equipment or brought into vehicle.

4. CDN Distracted Driving Collisions
2013 data from Transport Canada’s National Collision Database indicates that distracted driving was contributing factor in 21% of fatal and 27% of major injury collisions.
Represents 25% increase for fatalities and 14% increase for major injuries compared to 2006.
Doesn’t separate different types of distractions since they are not reported in most jurisdictions.

5. U.S. Distracted Driving Collisions
According to NHTSA’s 2014 FARS data, 10% of all fatal crashes and 18% of injury crashes involved distraction.
13% of fatal crashes involved use of cell phones (i.e., 1.3% of all fatal crashes).
Distracted driving overall and was highest for drivers aged (18%).
Cell phone use highest in age group (39% of distracted drivers).

6. U.S. Naturalistic Driving Study
3,500 people drove their own vehicles over 3 year period in 6 communities.
Data acquisition system video recorded driver during trips and sensors measured speed, alcohol presence, illuminance, etc.
Able to determine safety critical events (i.e., collisions, near misses) of which 905 events were injury or property damage collisions.
52% of collisions involved some distraction.
6.4% of drivers were using hand-held cell phone at time of collision.

7. 2012-13 CCMTA Observational Survey
105,000 drivers stopped at 538 urban and rural intersections across Canada observed for use of handheld electronic communication devices (ECDs).
Overall 4.4% of drivers were using ECDs with usage higher at urban (4.6 %) than at rural (3.5 %) sites.
Drivers were talking more on ECDs (2.3%) than typing or texting (1.6 %).
Talking on ECD was lower than in
surveys (3.3%).

8. 2012-13 CCMTA Observational Survey
ECD use was more frequent among:
Younger (<25) drivers (7.1 %)
Pick-up drivers (5.7%)
Drivers without passengers (5.6 %)
Male and female drivers were similar in ECD use.

9. 2014 U.S. Observational Survey
NHTSA observed 36,000 drivers stopped at intersections.
4.3% of drivers had phones to ears (i.e., listening or talking)- decrease from 5.2% in 2012.
Phone to ear was higher for those (5.8%) and females (5.1%).
Manipulation of hand-held device (i.e., texting, viewing/sending messages) increased to 2.2% from 1.7% in 2013.
Manipulation was higher for those (4.8%) and females (2.8%).

10. Public Opinion Surveys
2014 CCMTA Road Safety Survey found that:
30% of drivers said they talk on cell phone at least sometimes
24 % said that they text at least sometimes
Traffic Injury Research Foundation survey indicated that between 2009 and 2011, about 36% of Canadian drivers said that they had used cell phone while driving in last 7 days.

11. Public Opinion Surveys
2011 NHTSA survey reported that of over 6,000 American drivers:
42% make or accept calls at least sometimes
13% read s or texts at least sometimes
10% send s or texts at least sometimes
2013 survey in Nova Scotia found that 8% of drivers said they had used technical devices such as blackberries and navigational units and 3% had sent text messages in previous month

12. Relative Risk of Collisions
Redelmeier and Tibshirani (1997) using case- crossover design, found that use of cell phones increased risk of collision by 4 times.
Laberge Nadeau et al. (2003) used cell phone records to determine that risk of collision while using phones increased by 1.38 times.
Dingus et al. (2016) using NDS in U.S. found that risk of collision was 3.6 times higher when driver using cell phones and highest risk was for dialing cells (12.2 times) and texting (6.1 times).

13. Summary
21% of fatal and 27% of serious injury collisions involve distraction
About 4% of Canadian drivers have been observed using ECDs- similar to U.S.
About 1/3 of drivers say that they use ECDs while driving at least some of time- higher in U.S.
Use of ECDs raises risk of collisions by 1.38 to 4.
There is need for better collision data regarding distracted driving.
Project underway to estimate involvement of distraction by electronic devices in collisions.