The State of Distracted Driving in 2026

• In one year, 786,216 vehicle crashes were caused by distracted driving (12% of all crashes). 3,609 people lost their lives in car crashes caused by distraction in one year.
• Texting at the wheel is still rampant despite near-universal awareness of danger: 33% of drivers read texts while actively driving, and 87% say texting while driving is extremely or moderately dangerous.
• Advanced touchscreens are a built-in distraction: though nearly all cars made today are equipped with touchscreens, 23% of drivers feel that using them while driving is very dangerous.
• Concern about marijuana-impaired driving has jumped 12 points year-over-year, from 69% to 81% who consider it moderately or extremely dangerous — the biggest shift in the data.
• Distracted driving deaths vary dramatically by state. New Mexico has the highest rate at 10.8 deaths per 100,000 licensed drivers, followed by Louisiana (7.6) and Kansas (5.7). Each of these rates is more than three times higher than the national average.
• Most drivers don’t know their state’s hands-free laws: Only 41% knew whether their state bans hands-free phone use while driving.

Every year, public safety campaigns warn us. Laws get stricter. The statistics get grimmer. And yet, American drivers keep reaching for their phones while driving.

Distracted driving contributes to more than 786,000 crashes and 3,609 deaths in the United States every single year, and a new AutoInsurance.com survey suggests the behaviors behind those numbers are not going away. Thirty-three percent of drivers admit to reading texts while actively driving. Fifty-six percent eat or drink behind the wheel. And 87 percent say texting while driving is dangerous, but one in three drivers do it anyway.

Every year, public safety campaigns warn us. Laws get stricter. The statistics get grimmer. And yet, American drivers keep reaching for their phones. Our 2026 survey of 1,002 licensed U.S. drivers, combined with an analysis of the latest federal crash statistics, reveals that dangerous behavior behind the wheel isn’t declining. It’s entrenched in our culture. The picture that emerges is one of persistent contradiction: awareness without action, laws without compliance, and confidence without caution.

Distracted driving isn’t just about sending text messages. When AutoInsurance.com researchers asked drivers how often they engaged in specific behaviors while actively driving in the past 30 days, the results showed a far broader pattern of distraction: one that starts with something as mundane as a breakfast sandwich.

Most common distractions for U.S. drivers

Percent of drivers who say they do various activities while driving at least sometimes in the past 30 days

Source: AutoInsurance.com survey of 1,002 licensed U.S. drivers, 2026

Eating or drinking while driving was the most common distraction, with 56 percent of drivers doing it at least sometimes behind the wheel. More than half of drivers also use dashboard touchscreens while driving. Dashboard technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, replacing the simple levers and knobs drivers used to adjust air temperature or radio volume. In 2025, research from the University of Washington and the Toyota Research Institute used vehicle simulators to show that driving accuracy and cognitive function declined as drivers used built-in touchscreens.¹

Phone distractions remain common despite the risks. Half of drivers say they make hands-free calls at least some of the time while driving, while 37 percent read phone notifications and 33 percent read text messages. Even drivers using insurance telematics apps, which are designed to encourage safer driving, are just as likely to text while driving as those without such programs.

One of the more striking patterns in this data is what happens at red lights. Nearly every distracted behavior increases when drivers stop at intersections, sometimes sharply. Reading phone notifications jumps from 37 percent while driving to 54 percent at a stoplight; reading texts rises from 33 percent to 53 percent. Many drivers appear to treat a red light as a window of permission. It isn’t. A light can turn green while a driver is mid-text or mid-bite.

Our study of 1,002 licensed American drivers reveals that workplace pressure plays a minor but notable role in tech use behind the wheel. Though eighty-one percent of drivers say they feel no pressure from their employer to respond to messages while driving, 19 percent report at least some pressure. This rises to 22 percent among drivers aged 18 to 29. Among the youngest drivers, who are already the most distracted group on the road, workplace hustle culture may be adding fuel to the fire.

Young drivers

If there is one variable that most powerfully predicts distracted driving behavior, it’s age. The gaps between the youngest and oldest drivers in our survey are not just statistically significant, they’re staggering.

Fifty-eight percent of drivers aged 18 to 29 read phone notifications at least sometimes while actively driving, compared to just 18 percent of those 60 and older, a full 40-point gap. The pattern holds across nearly every behavior: reading texts (49 percent vs. 17 percent, a 32-point gap), making hands-free calls (63 percent vs. 33 percent), and sending texts (34 percent vs. 12 percent).

Distracted driving behaviors by age group

Percent of drivers who say they do various activities while driving at least sometimes in the past 30 days

Source: AutoInsurance.com survey of 1,002 licensed U.S. drivers, 2026

It’s worth noting that 60-and-older drivers aren’t off the hook. Nearly half (44 percent) use the dash touchscreen while driving, and a third make hands-free calls, behaviors that pose a real cognitive distraction risk, even if they feel routine.

iPhone users

Interestingly, iPhone users are significantly more likely than Android users to take part in nearly every distracting behavior in our survey. iPhone users are more likely to read texts while driving (40 percent vs. 24 percent), send texts (30 percent vs. 15 percent), scroll social media (10 percent vs. three percent), and read notifications (43 percent vs. 30 percent). However, younger drivers are disproportionately likely to own iPhones, and age is the stronger underlying predictor. The device gap likely reflects the demographic gap as much as anything about the devices themselves. Notably, Android users rate the same behaviors as more dangerous despite doing them less, a striking attitude-behavior reversal.

Highly-confident drivers

Self-reported driving skill also influences how often drivers engage in distracting behaviors. Drivers who consider themselves better than average behind the wheel are more likely to use tech behind the wheel, not less. Those who felt they were better-than-average drivers were significantly more likely to make hands-free calls while driving at least sometimes (53 percent vs. 40 percent), read phone notifications (40 percent vs. 29 percent), use the dash touchscreen (56 percent vs. 46 percent), and read texts (35 percent vs. 27 percent).

Distracted driving behavior by self-reported driving skill

Percent of drivers who say they do various activities while driving at least sometimes in the past 30 days

Not a single behavior ran in the other direction with statistical significance. While our survey can’t establish why this pattern exists, one possible explanation is that drivers who feel confident in their abilities may also feel more comfortable multitasking behind the wheel. This is a reminder that self-assessed skill and actual safe behavior don’t always align.

The perception data from our survey reveal two distinct problems: activities where drivers underestimate the danger, and activities where they accurately recognize the danger but engage in them anyway.

The most positive year-over-year shift is on marijuana-impaired driving, where the share rating it as moderately or extremely dangerous jumped 12 points, from 69 percent in 2024 to 81 percent in 2026. That’s the largest change in our dataset and may reflect growing public awareness campaigns as marijuana legalization has expanded across more states.

Percentage of drivers who consider activities moderately or extremely dangerous

By year

Sources: AutoInsurance.com surveys, 2024 and 2026

Texting while driving presents the starkest contradiction: 86 percent of drivers say it’s extremely or moderately dangerous, yet 33 percent do it while actively driving. The behavior is widely condemned and widely practiced.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, hands-free calls are seen as benign by most. Only 15 percent viewed them as moderately or extremely dangerous. But research from the University of Utah has found that hands-free phone conversations can impair a driver’s reaction time and hazard perception comparably to alcohol intoxication.² The public’s comfort with hands-free calling is not well-supported by science.

Perhaps the most striking blind spot involves dashboard touchscreens, a feature that now comes standard in nearly all new vehicles. Nearly one in four drivers rate using it while driving as moderately or extremely dangerous, yet 53 percent do it behind the wheel, making it the second most common distraction in our entire dataset. Drivers appear to have normalized touchscreen interaction as part of modern driving, even as the screens themselves have grown larger and more complex.

Distracted driving laws only work if drivers know they exist. Our survey found that most do, but knowledge gets fuzzier as the laws get more specific.

Seventy-one percent of drivers correctly identified that their state has a ban on texting while driving, a foundational law now in place in 49 states and Washington D.C.³ But when we asked about hands-free laws, which require all phone use to be conducted via speakerphone, Bluetooth, or similar technology, the picture changed considerably. Only 41 percent of drivers correctly identified their state’s hands-free law status. Twenty-four percent got it wrong, and 34 percent simply didn’t know. Today, 33 states and D.C. prohibit all drivers from using handheld cell phones.

The human cost of distracted driving is not hypothetical. According to the most recent federal crash data, 786,216 crashes (13 percent of all estimated crashes nationally)  involved distraction in a single year. Those crashes resulted in 1,549,491 injuries. In fatal crashes specifically, distraction played a role in 3,320 incidents, claiming 3,609 lives (9 percent of all traffic fatalities).⁴

The toll is not evenly distributed across the country. State-by-state fatality rates vary enormously.

Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). 

Our survey puts a human face on those numbers. Fourteen percent of respondents had been in a crash caused by distracted driving, and 16 percent know someone who has been injured or killed by a distracted driver, a figure that rises to 21 percent among young people aged 18 to 29.

Two years of research suggest the distracted driving problem is not self-correcting yet. Danger awareness is stable or rising, but behavior isn’t improving across the board.

Three trends deserve attention heading into 2027:

1. The adoption of hands-free laws is accelerating, but awareness hasn’t kept pace. This is a communications challenge for legislators and safety advocates alike.
2. The dashboard touchscreen is now the second most common distraction on the road, and vehicles are only becoming more technologically complex.
3. The 12-point jump in marijuana danger awareness signals a cultural shift worth tracking. However, with four percent of drivers still admitting to driving under the influence of marijuana, perception has yet to translate into complete behavior change.

Ultimately, our data suggests that the drivers most likely to engage in distracted behavior are also the most likely to believe they can handle it. That combination (overconfidence and underestimated risk) is the hardest problem of all to solve with a law or a public service announcement.

This study used a mixed-methods quantitative design combining original survey research with secondary analysis of federal traffic-safety data.

Survey: An online survey of 1,002 licensed U.S. drivers was fielded February 24–25, 2026. Participants were required to hold an active driver’s license and drive more than zero hours per week. The sample was structured to reflect 2020 U.S. Census benchmarks for sex and age. No weighting was applied. The margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

The survey measured self-reported distracted driving behaviors (texting, calling, app use, social media, eating, and grooming), perceived risk, law awareness, near-crash experiences, work-related pressure to stay reachable while driving, and attitudes toward telematics and insurance incentives.

Secondary data: 2023 NHTSA CRSS microdata was used to analyze national distracted driving and crash patterns. NHTSA FARS microdata was used to compare distracted-driving fatalities by state, normalized by licensed drivers, population, and vehicle miles traveled.