Distracted driving covers a lot: texting, checking emails, surfing the web, entering an address into your GPS, and pretty much anything else that takes any portion of your attention off of the road and onto something else (I’ve even seen someone shaving in traffic!). This can be especially tempting when you are crawling in traffic, you aren’t going very fast so it’s not as dangerous, right?? Wrong! When you are stuck in traffic, people are squeezing their way into and out of the lanes, moving at a stop-and-go rate and typically, if the congestion you are in is anything like the kind I am in, the tension level is high for most of the drivers around you. All in all, there is no safe time for distracted driving, regardless of your excuse!
Fortunately, if you have someone else in the car with you there is an easy solution – denote them your designated “texter” (like a designated driver but, for texting!). Yet another good reason for carpooling, aside from lower levels of pollution and the HOV lane of course. Having someone in the car that can take care of the stuff that would ordinarily take your attention off of the road is one of the safest solutions to your distracted driving dilemmas. If you are typically on the road alone, unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to you. Instead, you should pull to the side of the road, where it is safe, and take care of your digital cravings (or whatever else it is that you need to do) or at least do it before you leave your driveway.
Being a “triple-A driver” is very important and distracted driving can only take away from that. When you choose to do anything other than focus on driving when you are behind the wheel, you are creating a very risky situation in which your chances of getting into an accident are greatly increased and your reaction time is much slower – not a good combination if you ask me! To keep the roads safer and your Massachusetts Car Insurance rates as low as possible, practice safe driving, NOT dangerous driving – be anti-distracted driving!
27/04/2011 at 3:18 pm Permalink
This is a great article, and a very interesting video. I agree with drivers having a designated “texter” if possible.
Here is our recent blog about passengers confronting distracted drivers. http://blog.prac.com/bid/31409/Attention-Passengers-of-Distracted-Drivers