In April 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rebranded its latest Distracted Driving high visibility enforcement campaign with the slogan “Put the Phone Away or Pay.” This new messaging replaced the prior campaign slogan of U Drive. U Text. U Pay., and is intended to remind all drivers, including professional truck drivers, of the deadly dangers and consequences of driving while distracted. Sadly, despite the revolving door of catchy slogans, we’ve made no headway on the number fatal crashes to which distracted driving contributed. In fact, since 2018 the percentage of fatal crashes in which cell phone use was a factor hasn’t budged an inch.
As the primary traffic safety agency at the federal level, NHTSA is well-known for leading high visibility safety campaigns that typically include a catchy, memorable message to drivers, data, facts and graphics on the traffic safety challenge being addressed, educational materials, sample news releases, and social media posts. These materials are designed to spread the word during what is typically a coordinated week-long education and enforcement blitz. These blitzes involve most State traffic enforcement agencies, many local police departments and other traffic safety partners. In this case, the most recent week-long distracted driving blitz occurred in early April 2024 during National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Over time, NHTSA has developed a repeatable model for implementing these campaigns and the agency’s leadership in tackling highway safety challenges like distracted driving is well-regarded by many.
Having said that, we are writing about this topic in August 2024 (four months after the week-long blitz) not just to highlight the distracted driving topic and how NHTSA and its State law enforcement partners are trying to reduce the problem, but also to highlight some ways to improve the program and further move the needle. For example, we’re now four months after the week-long enforcement campaign and NHTSA has not released any national data on the number of distracted driving traffic stops made or the number of citations issued. Collecting and summarizing such data helps to communicate the seriousness of the problem, the amount of enforcement effort expended to address it, and it also provides NHTSA and its law enforcement partners another opportunity to reinforce the “Put the Phone Away or Pay” message in the media and elsewhere.
NHTSA could also engage FMCSA on this campaign who could, in turn, urge the motor carrier industry to use campaign resources to spread the word among the more than 3 million commercial drivers. A check of FMCSA’s news releases in April 2024 suggests that FMCSA was not engaged or actively involved. Some professional truck drivers are not immune to the temptation of texting or using a mobile phone while operating, and fleet owners and managers are always looking for additional means and messages to highlight the dangers of distracted driving in large commercial vehicles. Trucking is a very large industry and NHTSA could use it as an effective force multiplier.
And, since August and early September is back-to-school time, NHTSA and its safety partners could engage the media and strategically use social media to communicate the “Put the Phone Down or Pay” message to young drivers returning to high school and college. This population of drivers is not only inexperienced, but national data shows that it is the driving population most likely to be distracted if a serious crash occurs.
Final thought on this topic – we believe few would argue that NHTSA’s “Click It or Ticket” seat belt campaign is the most widely known and perhaps its most effective educational and enforcement campaign. The Click It or Ticket message is simple, effective and doesn’t change year-to-year. In light of the static distraction-related crash statistics, NHTSA and FMCSA may need focus on giving its enforcement and education strategies the facelift it insists on giving the slogan.