“Distracted driving is 100 percent preventable, yet too many people give the road far less than 100 percent of their attention,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Administrator Jonathan Morrison said during a press event April 1.
NHTSA officials kicked off National Distracted Driving Awareness Month and unveiled a renewed national enforcement and education effort aimed at curbing one of the most persistent dangers on U.S. roadways. Also speaking was Derek Barrs, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA); Michael Paris, chief of Fairfield, Connecticut Police; and Patty Kruszewski, who lost her daughter in a distracted driving crash.
The agency is launching its enforcement campaign, “Put the Phone Away or Pay” April 9–13, pairing high-visibility law enforcement with a broad media push targeting drivers, particularly those ages 18 to 34. Officials say the goal is to change behavior before another preventable tragedy occurs.
“We cannot be satisfied until we get that number down to zero,” Morrison said, noting that while traffic fatalities have begun to decline, tens of thousands of lives are still lost each year.
Despite recent progress, distracted driving remains a major factor in roadway crashes nationwide. Federal data cited during the press event notes that more than 33,000 people were killed in crashes involving distracted drivers in 2024, with hundreds of thousands more injured.
Officials emphasized that those numbers likely undercount the true scope of the problem, as distraction can be difficult to confirm after a crash.
“Behind every statistic … that’s a human life,” Barrs said.
Distracted driving is especially dangerous around school buses, where children may unpredictably enter the roadway. Even a momentary glance at a phone can mean the difference between stopping in time, or not.
“Just even one injury or death on our roadways due to distraction … is way too many,” Barrs said.
A recent National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that a 17-year-old driver was using his cellphone when he struck and killed a 13-year-old student who was preparing to board a school bus in Wisconsin. In its final report on the crash, the NTSB called for stronger enforcement, education and technology solutions to protect students during loading and unloading.
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Meanwhile, on Monday, Paris stressed that visible enforcement is critical, but not enough on its own. “We need every driver to make a simple but critical choice — put the phone down, slow down, pay attention,” he said.
During the campaign week, officers across the country will increase patrols and actively ticket drivers caught using handheld devices. The effort is supported by a national media campaign, both English and Spanish.
At its core, the campaign returns to a straightforward message: no notification is worth a life. Officials and safety advocates alike are urging drivers to make that decision before they start the engine: Silence the phone, set it aside and stay focused.
Because, as Morrison noted, it only takes seconds for distraction to change lives forever.
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Kruszewski told the story of her daughter, Lanie, who at 24 years old was struck and killed while biking home from work in 2012. The driver later admitted he never saw her because he was looking at his phone. Kruszewski said the tragedy underscored how quickly a seemingly small decision, checking a message, can destroy lives.
It “took just one text” to take her daughter’s life and forever change her family, she said.
Behind officials during the announcement stood an installation of hundreds of hanging car keys, each representing a person injured in a distracted driving crash. The display included about 4,000 keys — symbolizing just a fraction of the victims hurt in 2024.
But officials noted that if the exhibit reflected the full scale of the crisis — more than 315,000 people injured in distracted driving crashes that year — it would stretch across half a football field.
“In just the time we’ve been talking today, another 18 people have now been injured in distracted driving crashes,” Morrison said near the close of the event.
