National Distracted Driving Telephone Survey Finds Most Drivers Answer the Call, Hold the Phone, and Continue to Drive [Traffic Tech]

NHTSA · 2011 · ROSA P / United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (full text — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted the first of several periodic national surveys to monitor public attitudes, knowledge, and self-reported behaviors regarding distracted driving, specifically focusing on cell phone use and texting. The 2010 survey was administered via telephone to 6,002 respondents aged 18 and older, with an oversampling of young adults (18–34). Data collection occurred during November and December 2010, resulting in 4,877 completed interviews via landline and 1,125 via cell phone. The study aimed to establish a baseline for understanding driver choices and perceptions of safety in the context of emerging mobile technologies. The findings reveal that the majority of drivers engage in distracted driving behaviors. Approximately 66% of respondents reported answering incoming calls while continuing to drive, with 45% holding the phone in their hand. Only 9% pulled over to answer, and 12% chose to call back later. Drivers primarily justified these actions based on the perceived importance of the communication or the caller, rather than considering traffic conditions, personal safety, or state laws. While 68% of drivers acknowledged that taking eyes off the road for two seconds or more increases danger, one-third of young drivers (18–24) underestimated this risk, citing longer durations as acceptable. When asked how their driving changed while texting, 25% claimed no difference, while 31% reported driving slower; notably, younger drivers were more likely to report no change in driving behavior. Public perception of safety varies significantly by activity and age. As passengers, nearly all respondents viewed drivers sending or reading text messages as "very unsafe," with concern levels rising sharply with age. In contrast, only about one-third considered drivers talking on a handheld phone or manipulating navigation systems as very unsafe. Despite these behavioral risks, support for legislative intervention is high: 90% of respondents support bans on texting while driving, and 60% support bans on phone use. Support for substantial fines ($100 or more) is also prevalent, particularly among older drivers. However, drivers identified few scenarios where they would abstain from phone use; bad weather was the primary deterrent, while factors such as police presence, nighttime driving, or having children in the vehicle rarely influenced their decision to refrain from calling or texting. This report highlights a significant disconnect between drivers' self-perceived safety and their actual behaviors, as well as a gap between public concern for texting and tolerance for handheld phone use. The data suggests that while there is broad public support for stricter regulations, personal convenience and the perceived importance of communication remain the dominant drivers of distracted driving behavior. The survey establishes a critical baseline for future monitoring of distracted driving trends and informs policy discussions regarding enforcement and public education strategies.

Key finding

Among 6,002 surveyed drivers, 66 percent answer incoming calls and keep driving and about 45 percent hold the phone in hand while driving.

Methodology

survey

Sample size: 6002

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (10 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• mobile phones
• distraction laws
• temporal
• visual manual
• manual
• visual

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence, behavioral performance data