The percentage of Alaska high schoolers texting or emailing while driving has jumped over the past few years, according to recently-released results from a statewide survey.
The survey, conducted by the state Department of Health every other year, found that in 2023 about 40% of high schoolers reported using their phones while driving. That’s up from about 30% in 2019. The department skipped the survey in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
John Ruyak, a program manager at the Center for Safe Alaskans in Anchorage, which aims to increase traffic safety, said he’s not surprised that so many teens are texting while driving, but it’s risky.
“Driving is a very complicated task, and so anything that you’re doing that’s taking your focus off of getting from point A to point B safely is going to put you at risk for crashing,” Ruyak said.
According to research, texting and driving is as dangerous as driving drunk. Ruyak said he knows people are spending more and more time on their phones, and there are more and more types of notifications people can get. He said research shows those phone notifications release dopamine in peoples’ brains. That’s a powerful feel-good chemical, and that means it’s hard to ignore the notifications, so silencing phones while driving can help.
“When we hear that ping, we’re like, ‘Oh, someone wants to get ahold of me. Someone is thinking of me. I need to answer that,’” Ruyak said. “And so if we can eliminate the ping, then we don’t have the need to counteract that dopamine rush.”
He said people might not realize how significant it is to look away from the road and at a phone for even five seconds. For someone driving at 55 mph, Ruyak said they’re traveling the length of a football field.
“Across that time, wildlife could have entered the road and you didn’t see it. A pedestrian, a child could have entered the road,” Ruyak said. “And it feels like it’s a short amount of time. It might be five seconds, but you’ve traveled a really long distance, and a lot of things can happen between looking away from the road and looking back.”
Ruyak said families who are concerned about the safety of their teen drivers can make clear agreements with them, and he said it’s important that adults model safe behavior, well before kids are driving age.
“This doesn’t start when your child’s 14 and getting ready to get their license,” Ruyak said. “They see what you’re doing from the moment that you put them in the car, when they’re a baby, and they start to understand things more and more as time goes on. And if we’re normalizing healthy behaviors, safe behaviors, they’re going to pick up on that. We can also normalize unsafe behaviors, and that’s what we want to avoid.”
Ruyak said families can get advice for how to talk to teens about safe driving from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and find safety agreements to print out and sign with teen drivers.
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Rachel Cassandra covers health and wellness for Alaska Public Media. Reach her atrcassandra@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Rachel here.
