Smarter Driver: Why we're all less attentive behind the wheel
Cars
The phone.
The icon we believe to be a new era of driver distraction, taking our hands as in mind off the road.
But alone with the phone there is an array of other distraction that need to be rolled up in a simple realisation that we have a lot of tentativeness that the wheels sit.
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Nearly 70% of all car accidents in the US involve distraction.
And even when no crash happens, we're distracted while driving in some way 52% of the time.
Says who?
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
In a remarkable recent study, he recruited over 3500 drivers of all ages in six cities who allowed VGTI to install cameras, roads sensors and driver action centers in their vehicles and record what happened for three years Dialing a phone, that stood out to begin with.
Even though we spend very little time doing it, it has a huge impact on collision risk increase at the time.
Reading and writing, reaching for things in the car, staring out away from the road, and of course texting, rounded out the top five risk increase.
Answers, now cut the data another way and you see how much time we spend on driving distractions.
Talking to people in the car is number 1, so it only increases crash risk a relatively modest 40%.
Calling and texting and fussing with things in your car that aren't your phone round out the top three.
Putting on makeup, eating and drinking and tending to personal hygiene actually come in low in terms of time spent.
Then there's DWE, driving while emotional.
Drivers who are visibly sad, angry or otherwise upset, had a massive 10x increase in crash rate.
The main takeaways here are three.
Us drivers spent about half their time on the road distracted.
Eyes off the road results in the greatest measurable risk overall And Virginia Tech estimates that 36% of all crashes, or 4 million of them every year, wouldn't happen if we weren't doing something else at the time.
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