Report: Distracted driving deaths spiked after pandemic

As distracted and dangerous driving makes Pennsylvania’s roads less safe, lowering the fatality and crash numbers may start with behavioral – rather than legal – changes.

A recent survey from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety emphasizes the need to change driving norms, along with potential legal changes.

“When designing interventions or programs, state highway safety offices should find new ways to increase threat perceptions and offer solutions to the barriers most cited by distracted drivers,” the IIHS study argued.

Getting drivers away from their phones and tech-related distractions was a major theme.

“The advancement of mobile devices has resulted in constant connectivity, but at the expense of traffic safety,” the study noted.

In Pennsylvania, some data shows that progress had been made – until recently. Though distracted driving incidents are undercounted due to problems with proving distraction caused a crash, the state recorded 274 distracted driving deaths from 2017-2021, according to data from PennDOT. Deaths were falling 2018-2020, but then rose significantly in 2021.

That increase mirrored a general rise in danger on the roads. More than 1,200 people died on Pennsylvania roads in 2021 — a 9% increase from 2020, as The Center Square previously reported, with 118,000 crashes and 69,000 injuries across the state. Almost 13,000 incidents were blamed on distracted driving.

Other states have noted a rise in distracted driving deaths as well. Illinois officials counted 38 deaths and North Carolina counted 157 deaths in 2020. Nationally, the Governor’s Highway Safety Association estimated that at least 3,500 people died from distracted driving crashes.

“Distracted driving is rampant on U.S. roads, but it’s also preventable,” the GHSA argued.

Reducing deaths and crashes, the GHSA argues, requires clear legal language that bans the use of devices like phones, legal penalties, and “high-visibility enforcement of the law.”

Prohibition may not be enough, however. Police chiefs have argued that “a shift in the social norm” is needed to educate or shame drivers from focusing on things other than the road. When police target roads to prevent distracted driving – similar to drunk driving – but the evidence isn’t clear that anti-phone use laws reduce crashes in a state.