There have been so many mentions of distracted driving in everything from road safety campaigns to media reports of crashes that it is almost inconceivable that there are drivers out there who have not read or heard that it is dangerous.
Yet, if you were to stand by the side of the road on any given day, you would see that many of the drivers passing you were distracted. What could explain this insistence on continuing to put themselves and others at risk?
Not understanding how distracting everyday things can be
Part of the reason drivers continue to drive while distracted is that they might never have stopped to think about how distracting particular tasks or actions are. Many people associate distracted driving solely with handheld phone use, perhaps because this is the issue that lawmakers have directly targeted.
If more people realized that there are three kinds of distraction – visual, cognitive and physical – they might see how many of their actions fit into one, if not more, of those categories. For example, conversing with a passenger takes up some of your thought process (cognitive), and you may well turn to look at them (visual) and use your hands to gesture (physical). That’s all three forms of distraction in one everyday action.
Underestimating the risk
It’s likely that many people have never given proper thought to how dangerous distraction can be. Do you know, for example, how far your vehicle travels in five seconds, which is about how long it takes to read a text? If you were traveling at 55 mph, you would travel the length of a football field in that short time. You wouldn’t expect to make it to the other end of a football field filled with players if you were not paying attention, so why should a road filled with other vehicles be any different?
Those are just two of the things that might explain why people continue to drive distracted. If you’re injured by another driver in a crash, you don’t need to concern yourself with why they ignored the safety guidance. Simply proving that they were distracted could, in itself, help get you the compensation you may need. This is where having experienced legal guidance can make all the difference.