In 2025, GHSA partnered with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) to provide a $100,000 grant to the Maryland Highway Safety Office to to pilot an innovative approach quantifying distracted driving on state roadways and then implement strategies to address this risky driving behavior.
The Maryland Highway Safety Office (MHSO) received a $100,000 grant to gain a better understanding of distracted driving through telematics risk analysis (TRA). The Highway Safety Office purchased a Cambridge Mobile Telematics' (CMT's) StreetVision AI-powered tool that uses anonymous telematics data to geospatially map where risky driving behaviors are occurring and predict where collisions are likely to happen, allowing agencies to target countermeasures where they may be most beneficial.
MHSO used StreetVision to evaluate the effectiveness of two countermeasures on distracted driving and speeding. The project was conducted during Distracted Driving Awareness Month in April 2026 and combined localized, supplementary messaging and targeted social media outreach, beyond federally sponsored national campaign messaging, with coordinated high visibility enforcement efforts. Intervention corridors with high rates of distraction and speeding in Baltimore County were compared with control corridors with similar rates of distraction and speeding in Charles and Wicomico counties.
The goal of this project was to assess the effectiveness of using telematics data to identify Maryland roadway corridors with a high rate of distracted driving and speeding, and the impact of conducting HVE and public outreach on those corridors to produce measurable changes in these risky driver behaviors.
The project included the following outcomes and measures:
Outcome | Measure |
|---|---|
Reduction in phone motion while driving | Percent change in seconds of drive time with phone in motion |
Reduction in speeding while driving | Percent change in seconds of drive time speeding 5 and 10 mph over the posted speed limit (where speed limit is known), and in 50th and 85th percentile mean speeds |
Law Enforcement Contacts | Number of LE contacts during the April enforcement period |
Social Media Metrics | Number of impressions to measure awareness, and number of Likes/Comments/Shares to measure engagement |
Number of contacts through engagement efforts | Number of people reached through presentations and other educational events |
During the April enforcement period, the Baltimore County Police Department made 204 stops and issued 277 citations (including 16 serious violations requiring a mandatory court apperance). Citations addressed a range of unsafe driving behaviors. Officers also issued 86 traffic warnings.
Display advertising accounted for approximately 7.2 million impressions (68%), while social media generated 3.5 million impressions (32%) and reached more than one million unique users. Audience engagement exceeded expectations, generating 14,667 clicks across all digital platforms. Facebook produced the strongest click-through rate (0.55%).
IIHS will provide the measures for the first two goals (reduction in phone motion and speeding while driving), including site-specific information, in a forthcoming separate report.
