Distracted driving
act of driving while engaging in other activities which distract the driver's attention away from the road
Distracted driving is the act of driving while engaging in other activities which distract the driver's attention away from the road. Distractions are shown to compromise the safety of the driver, passengers, pedestrians, and people in other vehicles.
Cellular device use while behind the wheel is one of the most common forms of distracted driving. According to the United States Department of Transportation, "texting while driving creates a crash risk 23 times higher than driving while not distracted." Studies and polls regularly find that over 30% of United States drivers had recently texted and driven. Distracted driving is particularly common among, but not exclusive to, younger drivers.
Types of distractions
Distractions while driving can be separated into three distinct groups: visual, manual, and cognitive. Visual distractions involve taking one's eyes off the road, such as looking at a GPS screen as part of a route plan, looking at roadside billboards, or checking a child's seat belt in the rear view mirror. Manual distractions involve taking one's hands off the wheel, such as searching for something in a bag, eating or drinking, grooming, or changing radio stations. Cognitive distractions occur when an individual is not mentally focused on the act of driving. Some distractions can combine some or all of these groups, such as texting and calling on one's cell phone.
The public source identifies “Distracted driving” as act of driving while engaging in other activities which distract the driver's attention away from the road. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Distracted, driving and while.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5283083. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Distracted driving” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.