Driver Electronic Device Use in 2024 [Traffic Safety Facts]

NHTSA · 2026 · ROSA P / United States. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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Summary

This report presents findings from the 2024 National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), the only nationwide probability-based observational study of driver electronic device use in the United States. Conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the study aims to track trends in distracted driving behaviors, specifically focusing on three categories: holding cellphones to ears, speaking with visible headsets, and visibly manipulating handheld devices. The data provides a snapshot of driver behavior during daylight hours, offering critical insights into the prevalence of these distractions despite widespread legislative bans. The methodology involved trained roadside observers collecting data at probabilistically sampled intersections controlled by stop signs or stoplights. Observers recorded the behavior of drivers in passenger vehicles stopped at these sites between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. The 2024 survey, conducted from June 3 to June 20, observed 64,151 vehicles across 1,420 sites. This sample size increased significantly from 2023 due to a survey redesign that shifted sampling toward arterials and limited-access highways. The study uses complex estimation procedures to calculate national percentages, which are interpreted as the proportion of drivers engaged in specific behaviors during an average daylight moment. The results indicate diverging trends in device usage. The percentage of drivers holding cellphones to their ears decreased slightly from 2.1% in 2023 to 1.9% in 2024, a change that was not statistically significant. Conversely, the percentage of drivers visibly manipulating handheld devices increased significantly from 3.0% to 4.5%. This rise was particularly pronounced among drivers aged 16–24, whose manipulation rate reached 8.7%, the highest recorded since data collection began in 2005. The use of visible headsets remained stable at 0.5%. Demographic analysis revealed that female drivers continued to hold phones to their ears more frequently than males, while younger drivers consistently exhibited higher rates of handheld device manipulation. Additionally, the South Census region saw a statistically significant decrease in drivers holding phones to their ears. The significance of these findings lies in the growing prevalence of handheld device manipulation, which poses a substantial distraction risk. NHTSA estimates that 5.8% of drivers were using some form of phone (handheld or hands-free) during a typical daylight moment in 2024. The report notes that while 25 states and several territories have primary enforcement laws banning handheld use, and 48 states ban texting, the observed increase in manipulation suggests these behaviors persist. The data underscores the continued challenge of mitigating distraction-related crashes, which studies attribute to 29% of all traffic incidents, with cellphone distraction specifically linked to 6% of crashes.

Key finding

The percentage of drivers visibly manipulating handheld devices while driving increased significantly from 3.0 percent in 2023 to 4.5 percent in 2024, whereas the rates for holding phones to ears and using visible headsets remained statistically unchanged.

Methodology

field_study

Sample size: 64151

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 (5 acquisition events logged).

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

Topics

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• mobile phones
• distraction laws
• temporal
• exposure measurement

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
• Methodological Resource: dataset resource