The role of driver distraction in traffic crashes

Distraction is one form of inattention and it is a factor in over half of the crashes that involve some form of driver inattention. (The National Highway Traffic Safety administration estimates that at least 25% of police-reported crashes involve some form of driver inattention). The goal of this research is to identify the major sources of distraction to drivers and the relative importance of the distractions as potential causes of crashes. This report discusses the results of Phase I of the project. For this analyses, two variables were defined -- one identifying the attention status of the driver (attentive, distracted, looked but did not see, sleepy/asleep, or unknown). The second variable identified the specific distracting event for those drivers identified as distracted.