When my pops was instructing me the correct way to drive as a kid, he advised me to always count on the unexpected on the highway The truth is that you never know what is around the next corner. Because of this uncertainty, it is exceedingly important that when we drive we maintain our eyesight on the highway and our mind on the driving duty itself.
The facts make this danger incredibly clear.
In 2012, according to the National Highway Traffic Administration, eighteen percent of all fatal accidents were due to drivers who were distracted. These kinds of crashes resulted in 421,00 injuries and 3,328 deaths on our highways that year. These figures are not all that astonishing considering the fact that text messaging research reveals that doing so produces a collision risk that is 23 times higher than driving while not being distracted.
For American teens, 40% report that they have found themselves distracted behind the steering wheel as a direct result of using their cellular phones. And of those involved in collisions that they caused, 11% confess that they were either sending or receiving a text at the moment of the crash.
Even with all the facts presenting just how unsafe this manner of behavior can be, there is still no national laws barring the use of a cellular phone while driving. A number of individual states have approved legislation putting restrictions on the use of mobile phones while driving. And in states where no statewide ban has been approved, cities have taken it upon them selves to pass statutes prohibiting this sort of driver activity.
Regardless of how apparent the threats of driving and being pre-occupied are, research projects show that the vast majority of us still believe that we can multi-task and drive in a safe manner at the identical time. In a recent study conducted by AT&T, 90% of drivers acknowledged that txt messaging and driving is unsafe and yet they admitted that they still do it.
As human beings, we might be the most upgraded species on the earth, but even our minds can only do so much well at the same time. We hoodwink our-self when we are on the streets, by allowing our minds tell us that it will be risk-free to take our eyes off the highway to look at our phones.
If you are an AT&T client, they have produced an application which can help. When your motor vehicle comes to a stop this alert function is reactivated. The application also alerts the sender of the text message that you are driving and that their text message will not be acknowledged by you until your car has stopped.
This is an important advance that may very well stop injuries and deaths which are triggered by distracted driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Administration, txt messaging while driving is six times more unsafe than driving while intoxicated. Additional research has revealed that individuals who check their text messages while on the streets take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds and as a result they increase the prospect of being involved in a crash by 23 percent} To do so and in the process grow their chances of being caught up in a crash by twenty three % A driver traveling at highway speeds will travel the distance end to end of a football field in the time that they take to read even a short text message| When you consider that motorists who do this while traveling at highway velocities will travel the span of football field while their eyes are off the road, you can see just how dangerous this can be}}.
For your own protection, bear in mind the words of wisdom from my father many years before, expect the unexpected when you are driving and keep your focus where it needs to be any time you are behind the wheel.
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