2024 Traffic Safety Culture Index

Abstract

Introduction

Although motor vehicle crash fatalities in the United States declined slightly in 2024 compared to 2023, road deaths remain high. Understanding the cultural environment of driving, drivers’ concerns about road safety, and their awareness of risky driving behaviors is essential for explaining why risky behaviors such as speeding, distracted driving, and impaired driving continue to contribute to tens of thousands of fatalities each year.

The 2024 Traffic Safety Culture Index examined drivers’ perceptions, attitudes, and self-reported engagement in risky driving behaviors, as well as their views on government safety efforts and concerns about U.S. road safety. The report also analyzed response patterns from 2019 to 2024 to identify and track changes in risky driving profiles.

Methodology

The 2024 TSCI survey used a probability-based sampling panel representative of the U.S. population to collect data between August 7 and August 27, 2024. Descriptive analyses were conducted based on weighted data that consisted of 2,704 licensed drivers ages 16 or older who completed the online survey and reported driving at least once in the 30 days prior to the survey. Additional analyses used a latent class approach to identify and track changes in risky driving profiles over time.

Key Findings

Distracted Driving

• About 97% of drivers perceived scrolling through social media, 94% perceived texting or emailing, and 90% perceived reading on a hand-held phone as extremely or very dangerous. Despite these perceptions, 11% reported scrolling through social media, 28% reported sending a text or email, and 37% reported reading one while driving.
• Drivers predominantly agreed that people important to them would disapprove of distracted driving behaviors (84%–97% depending on the behavior).

Aggressive Driving Behaviors

• Most respondents perceived driving through a red light (80%) and aggressive driving (90%) as very or extremely dangerous.
• Fewer drivers perceived speeding as a dangerous activity. The speeding behaviors had the lowest perceived social disapproval of all the risky driving behaviors examined.

Drowsy Driving Behaviors

• Drivers predominantly perceived drowsy driving to be very or extremely dangerous (93%); however, 25% of drivers reported having engaged in the behavior in the past 30 days.

Impaired Driving Behaviors

• Drivers overwhelmingly perceived driving after drinking alcohol (93%) as very or extremely dangerous and 60% believed such a driver would likely be apprehended by police. Only 7% of respondents reported having engaged in this behavior in the past 30 days.
• By comparison, only 70% of drivers felt driving (within an hour) after using marijuana to be very or extremely dangerous and 25% believed such a driver would likely be apprehended by police. Only 6% of respondents reported having engaged in this behavior in the past 30 days.

Roadway Safety Perceptions

• In 2024, almost all respondents (96%) expressed concerns about roadway safety. Most concerns focused on risky driving behaviors: distraction (24%) was the highest, followed by speeding (16%), impairment (14%), and aggressive driving (11%).
• Half of drivers reported changing their driving behaviors in recent years to reduce crash risk. Over 40% said they drove more defensively, 30% reported trying not to exceed the speed limit, and just over 10% mentioned reducing phone use or maintaining a greater distance from other vehicles.

Changes in Profiles of Risky Driving Engagement Over Time

• Based on the patterns of reported risky driving behavior engagement over six years of TSCI survey data (2019–2024), five unique groups representing five general driving styles were identified using a latent class analysis and were interpreted as follows:
  • Safe Drivers: Rarely engaged in any risky driving behavior
  • Distracted Drivers: Predominantly engaged in all distracted driving behaviors
  • Speeding Drivers: Predominantly engaged in speeding behaviors
  • Distracted and Aggressive Drivers: Predominantly engaged in both distracted driving and aggressive driving behaviors
  • Most Dangerous Drivers: Engaged in all risky driving behaviors
• Safe Drivers consistently comprised the largest group over the six-year period, while Most Dangerous Drivers remained the smallest. Notably, the prevalence of Most Dangerous Drivers decreased over time.
• Distracted and Aggressive Drivers increased in prevalence, and the proportion of drivers with a Distracted Driving style rose slightly, peaking at 19% in 2023.
• The prevalence of Speeding Drivers remained between 23% and 27% in the study period, and drivers were slightly less likely to be classified as a speeding driver compared to the Safe Driving style.