Looking At Your Phone While Doing Highway Speeds Spikes Crash Risk 23x

A glance at your phone while driving doesn’t feel like much in the moment, but the numbers behind what could happen are difficult to ignore.

At 55 mph, taking your eyes off the road for five seconds means traveling roughly 400 feet blind—the length of about four football fields. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that innocuous five-second distraction can become deadly, increasing the risk of a crash by as much as 23 times.

Despite that, it’s become routine behavior. Navigation apps, like Waze, have turned smartphones into a constant presence behind the wheel, even as distracted driving continues to carry real consequences. NHTSA data shows 3,275 people were killed in distraction-related crashes in 2023, with cell phone use identified as a factor in roughly 12 percent of those fatalities.

The issue isn’t just whether drivers are using their phones, but how they’re using them. Where a device is positioned inside the cabin has a measurable impact on how long a driver looks away from the road. Mounting a phone higher on the dashboard or windshield often requires a larger head movement—sometimes 30 to 45 degrees—pulling a driver’s focus further from traffic. By contrast, a mount placed closer to the natural line of sight, near the center stack or just below the instrument panel, typically limits eye movement to around 10 to 15 degrees.

That difference may sound minor, but it directly affects how long a driver’s attention is diverted. Smaller eye movements mean shorter glance times and a better chance of maintaining peripheral awareness, particularly in dense traffic or at highway speeds.

The reality is that most drivers aren’t going to stop using navigation altogether. Commutes now often involve multiple checks—confirming a route, watching for traffic changes, or preparing for a turn. The goal, unfortunately, changes from elimination to mitigation. Keeping a device within a tighter visual field, or relying more on voice-guided directions, reduces the need for repeated, prolonged glances.

It’s not a complex fix, and it doesn’t require new technology—but the data makes it clear that even a small change will have an outsized effect on your safety.

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