How Much Does Using A Cellphone While Driving Increase Your Risk Of Having An Accident

Study after study has shown that using a phone while driving tin be dangerous. But although some safety advocates say you shouldn't use a phone at all when you're behind the wheel, that's non realistic, considering that smartphones—with their integrated digital assistants—take become the become-to device for many people to get directions, play audio, contact others, and obtain data. A phone tin can too be your most of import aid in an emergency. And if your car is operating equally a ride-share vehicle, using the services' apps is an integral part of doing business organization. The fundamental is to minimize unnecessary phone usage and to utilize your phone every bit safely as possible when you must. We take some communication.

How bad is using a telephone while driving?

In a 2022 study, the Insurance Constitute for Highway Safe (IIHS) plant that more drivers today are "manipulating" their phones while driving—performing such handheld activities as dialing, texting, accessing websites, entering destinations, and choosing music. The IIHS said this increased the run a risk of a fatal crash by an estimated 66 percent and contributed to more than 800 crash fatalities on United states roads in 2022, the latest yr for which data was available. Those fatality figures include both distracted drivers and whatsoever innocent drivers involved in the crashes. The number of injury-related nonfatal crashes is likely much higher.

"Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the route for v seconds," the National Highway Traffic Safe Administration (NHTSA) says. "At 55 mph, that'southward like driving the length of an unabridged football field with your optics closed." Similarly, a 2022 study past the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (PDF) establish that any "visual-manual cell phone interaction" well-nigh doubles the odds of a crash, triples the odds of driving off the route, and increases the odds of rear-catastrophe another vehicle past more than seven times. Interestingly, it also found that simply having a cell phone conversation didn't upshot in whatsoever significantly higher risk than when driving unremarkably.

Organizations such equally the National Safety Council and the National Transportation Safety Board recommend that people not use their phones at all while behind the wheel. On the other hand, Ian Reagan, an IIHS senior inquiry scientist, notes in a 2022 written report about in-automobile vocalism-control systems (PDF) that the correct tools tin help. "In an platonic world, drivers wouldn't practice anything but drive while the vehicle is moving. Just people are increasingly plugged in at all times," he says in the study. While using a phone can be inherently distracting on some level, he notes that "it's possible to reduce some types of distraction through system design."

How you can reduce the risks

A phone mounted horizontally on the dash of a car, showing a navigation screen. — A good smartphone mount can deeply concur a phone where information technology's easy to meet and interact with, and then it's more like using an in-dash brandish or a car GPS device. Photo: Rik Paul

Mount the telephone nearly middle level

For navigation and other essential tasks while driving, a keen pace whatever driver can take is to add a smartphone mount in their vehicle. Our pick offers the best combination of safety, convenience, and stability for your telephone. We besides recommend a wireless-charging mount that's easy to use, holds phones securely, and provides some of the quickest charging speeds nosotros've seen. While testing dozens of smartphone mounts over the by few years, we've constitute they can reduce the gamble of using a phone while driving in several ways:

A good mount holds the phone nearly a driver's normal line of sight through the windshield, which eliminates the need to look down and minimizes the time your eyes are off the road.
By eliminating the need to hold the phone, you tin go along both easily on the wheel, so y'all'll have optimal control if you need to rapidly swerve to avert an obstacle.
Having your phone mounted nearby and closer to your face than, say, if it were sitting in a cup holder or a console bin encourages the use of voice commands to dial numbers, enter destinations, cull music, and transport short messages. If your car doesn't take built-in Bluetooth, you tin can likewise use a Bluetooth kit to route the phone'south audio through your motorcar's audio organisation. This makes it easier to hear directions, music, and phone calls, which could lessen the need to reach for the phone to adapt the volume.
If you exercise have to touch the phone, placing it in a convenient, nearby spot at the dash level makes information technology easier to attain and more like adjusting a car stereo, which, according to a 2022 report by the NHTSA (PDF), has "trivial upshot on driving performance ... or crash risk."

Utilise a phone-friendly in-dash system

Using a organization that has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto can make telephone use less dangerous and meliorate your overall driving feel. These features mirror the telephone functions that y'all're already used to, and they place them on a automobile's big infotainment brandish. Instead of having to piece of work with a small telephone screen, using these features simplifies the interface with larger buttons, which are easier to see and collaborate with. This basically makes using your phone similar to operating a automobile's audio or congenital-in navigation system.

An Apple Car Play system sitting on the dash of a car, showing the system's home screen interface. — Apple CarPlay (shown higher up) and Android Auto, available in many new cars and add-on stereos, provide a more than driver-friendly interface for navigating, streaming audio, and conducting easily-free calls through your phone. This makes using them more like operating a stereo. Photo: Rik Paul

These features are popular in new cars, and they are now commonly available in many add-on automobile-audio systems, then you can probably discover i that fits your vehicle, even if information technology'due south an older or less expensive model. In our tests, nosotros found that our top option made connecting and using a phone easier than other models did. That's essential to minimizing distraction.

Try a "do not disturb while driving" mode

Minimizing the number of incoming messages and calls can too reduce the distraction of having a phone in the car. Many phones allow yous do this through a "practise not disturb while driving" feature. Yous tin prepare the one for iPhones (iOS eleven and later on) to automatically activate when the telephone senses motility or connects to a car via Bluetooth. Depending on your settings, it can limit incoming messages and calls to ones you want to come through, and if a message is urgent, yous can take Siri read information technology aloud. You tin also set up an automatic reply with a custom bulletin that goes to people trying to message y'all. While the phone's screen normally stays dark in this mode, the app still lets you use Maps to navigate. An editor on Wirecutter'south tech squad says this feature works very well.

Google built a like characteristic into its Android Bone, but it'due south available only in its Pixel 2 and 3 phones. For other Android phones, you can use third-political party apps, such every bit Driving Detective and Drivemode, to become similar functionality, although nosotros haven't tried them.

An culling for Android telephone owners is the Android Machine app, which limits your phone's usage mainly to navigating, listening to audio, conducting hands-costless calls, and sending and receiving messages by phonation. As with the "do not disturb while driving" apps, you can set this one upwards to turn on automatically when it detects yous're in a auto. In our experience, the Android Machine app works well, merely nosotros recommend using it with a adept smartphone mount.

Focus on the road

We agree with safety advocates who say that phone apply should exist kept to a minimum. Good tools can help you lot stay condom, but the virtually of import aid in reducing your risk is your own mutual sense. Brand the route your number ane priority. Even if you're using your phone only through voice commands or by pressing the occasional button or two, don't attempt to practise this when at that place are other things to focus on. If yous're approaching an intersection, passing a machine, merging, or maneuvering through a crowded street, await a infinitesimal. And if you lot need to do something that y'all can't accomplish with a voice control or a quick push button press—looking upwards an accost, setting upwards a playlist or an audiobook, sending an extended message—exercise information technology before yous begin driving or after you find a rubber identify to pull off the route. Nosotros think a smartphone can be a valuable aid in the car—like stereos and navigation systems can be—and then making it easy to admission and being careful near how you use it can prevent it from condign a deadly distraction.