Distracted driving: Once we Know better, we should do better!!

She
received her driver’s license three weeks ago on her sixteenth
birthday. She borrowed her mom’s car to pick up her friend to do some
shopping. Her cell phone beeps, she glances away from the road to
check her phone. In that brief moment, she drifts across lanes into
oncoming traffic.

A
story like this has impacted just about everyone, including me.

Distracted
driving amongst teens has become a national epidemic resulting in
accidents and thousands of lost lives annually. Distracted driving
includes the use of cellular devices, taking photos while driving,
applying make-up while driving, and eating while driving. Any
activity that causes your eyes to leave the road while your vehicle
is in motion is considered distracted driving.

Distracted
driving affects teens more than any other population, with more than
50% of teen crashes are now thought to be caused by an activity that
takes your focus from the road or distracted driving.

An
article titled, The Danger of Using Social Media while driving by
driversafe.com states that sending or receiving a text message while
driving is estimated to take the driver’s eye off of the road ahead
for an average of 4.6 seconds. The article goes on to state; to put
things into perspective, traveling at 55mph in that short amount of
time is the equivalent to driving the entire length of a football
field. However, many people assume they are more capable than they
are when it comes to multitasking on the road.

Multitasking
behind the wheel is a dangerous trend as participating in tasks such
as checking social media and changing online status behind the wheel
takes eyes off of the road while driving. These risks, combined with
teenage inexperience with driving, makes for a very deadly
combination.

Did
you know that typing text messages reduces a driver’s ability to
direct attention to the roadway adequately? Did you know that if you
aren’t focused on driving that your response to essential traffic
events is impaired? And did you know that texting while driving
impairs your ability to control a vehicle within a lane and prevent
drifting into another lane

Attending
drivers ed classes can assist with making young drivers aware
of the dangers of distracted driving by reviewing not only safety on
the road but also studying statics and fatalities on the roadways due
to distracted driving. Knowing and understating these statistics
could help reduce the number of deaths related to driving.

In
other initiatives, Mobile carriers like AT&T (with its “It
Can Wait” campaign, which also encourages users to sign a
pledge), and Sprint offer applications that disable individual device
capabilities, blocking text messages, sending auto-replies and
locking the screen.

Currently,
there are several apps, such as Safe Drive and Cell Control, which
prevent internet and browser use while the vehicle is in motion.

With
all of this knowledge, it is time we take distracted driving
seriously. In the powerful words of Maya Angelou, “When you knew
better, do better.”