• February 13th, 2024

The percentage of passenger vehicle drivers talking on handheld phones decreased from 2.5 percent in 2021 to 2.1 percent in 2022 (Figure 1 and Table 1). The percentage of drivers speaking with visible headsets while driving remained unchanged from the previous year’s level of 0.4 percent (Figure 1 and Table 2). Drivers’ visible manipulation of handheld devices decreased from 3.4 percent in 2021 to 3.1 percent in 2022 (Figure 1 and Table 3). In 2021 data collected for drivers visibly manipulating handheld devices while traveling included manipulating infotainment systems. This was an errant departure from the usual data collection protocol. For 2022 the data collection procedure reverted to excluding the manipulating infotainment systems. As such, the data point for visible manipulation of handheld devices in 2021 and 2022 are not connected to the rest of the trend line. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does not know the extent to which manipulating infotainment systems contributed to the results for drivers visibly manipulating handheld devices. These results are from the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), which provides the only nationwide probability-based observed data on driver electronic device use in the United States.

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