The Many Dangers of Distracted Driving
Grabbing your phone to check a text or reaching behind you to adjust your child’s pacifier isn’t a big deal when you are driving, is it? Actually, statistics show that it is. According to the National Health and Traffic Safety Association, 18 percent of fatal crashes in the country occur because of distraction. This means every year over 3,000 people die because of distracted driving. This is a serious problem, and causes many people to turn to an auto accident attorney for help.
What Is Distracted Driving?
Distracted Driving, according AAA, is anything that can take your mind off of driving and the road. These include actions that cause you to take your:
– Hands off the wheel
– Mind off driving
– Eyes off the road
This can include everything from attending children, looking at another accident, eating and drinking in the car and, of course, using a cell phone while driving. Even simple actions like changing the CD in your car can lead to distracted driving. As you can see, the number of distractions facing today’s drivers is quite high.
Of all of these distractions, texting and driving is, perhaps, the most dangerous. Text messaging creates a 23 percent higher crash risk. This action pulls the eyes off the road and the mind off of driving more than just about any other action a driver could do.
Why Distracted Driving Is So Risky
So why is distracted driving such a risk? Think about driving for a second. You are moving an extremely heavy piece of metal down the road at a very high speed. Small changes in your driving actions lead to huge changes in direction and speed. Even taking your eyes off the road for two seconds can double your risk of a crash, and almost any action you would do in the car will pull your eyes from the road.
Unfortunately, distractions just keep coming, and the driver today has far more possible distractions than drivers from several years ago.
So what can you do? First, put the phone down. Lock it in your glove box while driving if you have to. Then, make sure you have an auto accident attorney available if you are involved in a crash. With so many distractions, chances are high another driver on the road with you will not be as careful as needed to keep the roads safe. In order to limit these problems, all drivers are going to have to give some attention to safe driving practices.