The Department of Transportation plans to hold a top-level meeting on distracted driving in September, according to a safety advocate who was invited to participate.

David Teater, a spokesman for the National Safety Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the Transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, planned to hold a press conference Tuesday to announce plans for the meeting.

The agency confirmed that Secretary LaHood was making an announcement Tuesday “about combating distracted driving,” including practices like texting behind the wheel. An agency spokeswoman, Sasha Johnson, declined to elaborate.

The Times has published a series of articles recently highlighting the dangers of multitasking behind the wheel. Studies show that people talking on cellphones are four times likelier to get into an accident than other motorists.

Mr. Teater said he hoped that the meeting would focus not just on texting but also on talking while driving, which he said may not be as dangerous as texting but presents serious risks. Fourteen states ban texting while driving, and the New York assembly recently passed such a measure on to the governor.

In a poll released last week, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that some 30 percent of drivers considered the roads less safe then they did five years ago, a drop in confidence that the foundation said was largely attributable to the growth of behind-the-wheel multitasking.

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