Distracted Driving- The Real Facts

Distractions Are Everywhere.  Driving involves constant and complex coordination between your mind and body. Events or things that prevent you from operating your car safely are distractions.

Driving is a skill that requires your full attention to safely control your vehicle and respond to events happening on the roads around you.

There are three types of distractions and they are anything that takes your:

• eyes off the road (visual).
• mind off the road (cognitive).
• hands off the steering wheel (manual).

 

When you think about the actions you make in your vehicle, other than just driving, you can see that they often involve more than one type of distraction. For instance, if you change your radio station, you take a hand off the steering wheel to press a button, and take your eyes off the road to look at what button you want to press.

Driving Distractions Study

Driver distractions are the leading cause of most vehicle crashes and near-crashes. According to a study released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), 80% of crashes and 65% of near-crashes involve some form of driver distraction. The distraction occurred within three seconds before the vehicle crash!

According to the NHTSA and VTTI study, the principal actions that cause distracted driving and lead to vehicle crashes are:

• cell phone use.
• reaching for a moving object inside the vehicle.
• looking at an object or event outside of the vehicle.
• reading.
• applying makeup.

Drivers who engage more frequently in distracted driving are more likely to be involved in a vehicle crash or near-crash.

Get the facts on driving while distracted.  Questions to consider:

1. What are the leading causes of motor vehicle accidents?

2. Are these causes preventable?

3. Should we attempt to prevent the leading causes? Even if it means you have to modify your behavior?

4. Do you support more laws as tools of enforcement? Is education enough?

5. If driving on the cell phone results in the same reaction time as driving drunk, why aren't the penalties and social outrage the same?

6. Statistics show that delaying the driving age reduces teen deaths; would you support raising the driving age?

7. If you would ban texting while drivng, why not cell phone use?  What about eating while driving? Sex while driving? Reading while driving?

8. How do you feel about your kids texting while driving?

9. How do you feel about others who drive your kids, texting while driving?

10. Will you change your behavior while driving, especially when your kids are in your vehicle?

Research on Distracted Driving: http://www.nhtsa.gov/Research/Human+Factors/Distraction

Insurance Instituate for Highway Safety - Report on Declines of Fatal Crashes of Older Drivers:  http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/pdf/r1140.pdf

Study: Cellphone Use While Driving - http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/pdf/r1134.pdf

Patterns of Driver Cell Phone Use: http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/pdf/r1133.pdf

Delaying Teen Driving Saves Lives: http://www.iihs.org/news/2008/iihs_news_090908.pdf