By now, everyone agrees that distracted driving is becoming a serious problem. What everyone might not agree on, however, is what constitutes “distracted driving” or the degree to which it’s causing accidents on our roads. A new study aims to address some of those problems and—sorry to say—its findings are pretty grim.
The study was overseen by the Governors Highway Safety Association, a nonprofit organization that represents highway safety offices in every state and territory, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Here are a few highlights from the study:
1) There are four basic types of distractions: visual (e.g. looking away from the road), auditory (e.g. listening to something that’s unrelated to driving), manual (e.g. fiddling with something other than the steering wheel or gear shift, like the radio or a mobile phone), and cognitive (e.g. thinking about something other than driving).
2) Most major distractions involve at least two of the above factors.
3) Shockingly, the majority of drivers admit to being distracted between 25% and 50% of the time they are behind the wheel.
4) Roughly 1/3 of all drivers regularly use a mobile phone while driving.
5) Roughly 1 in 8 drivers have said that they text and drive.
6) Between 15% and 30% of drivers involved in auto accidents have admitted to being distracted (and the figure may actually be higher due to reporting inconsistencies).
7) While texting is almost certainly more dangerous than talking on a cell phone, the GHSA study insists that “there is no conclusive evidence on whether hands-free cell phone use is less risky than hand held use.”
8) Laws prohibiting talking and texting on mobile phones result in reductions of those activities immediately after the law goes into effect, but there’s no sign that they have any long-term impact or that they reduce the total number of crashes.
Despite point #8, the GHSA recommends that states continue to implement anti-talk/text laws, but stress that unless those laws are regularly enforced, they’ll do no good.
As technologies in telematics and collision-avoidance become more common place, hopefully we’ll see distracted driving become a more manageable problem. For now the problem lies with us, the drivers. We have to take responsibility for our actions and put away the phones while driving and encourage our kids, co-workers, and spouses to do the same.
*Portions of this taken from GHSA study
