Driving distracted kills

How would you like to reduce your chance of having a serious wreck by nearly one-third? You can do just that by not succumbing to the many sources of driver distraction.

The official policy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states, “The primary responsibility of the driver is to operate a motor vehicle safely. The task of driving requires full attention and focus.” And further (fill in the blanks), “___________ can distract drivers from this task risking harm to themselves and others. Therefore, the safest course of action is to refrain from _____________ while driving.”

Drivers have a host of distractions to choose from to fill in those blanks — here’s a list compiled by AAA of common distracted driving activity, derived from the observation of thousands of drivers:

•Reaching, leaning

•Manipulating audio components

•Eating, drinking

•Conversing

•Grooming

•Passenger/child interaction

•Reading or writing

•Using a cell phone

•Smoking

OK, we all engage in these activities at times while driving. Limiting or eliminating them makes good safety-sense, however, because their potential adverse consequences are more than just theory. The Virginia State DMV did a study of 2,700 crash scenes, involving 4,500 drivers, and determined the top 15 crash-causing distractions:

•Looking at a crash, or roadside incident (rubbernecking)

•Driver fatigue

•Looking at scenery or landmarks

•Passenger or child distraction

•Adjusting or changing radio/tape/CD

•Talking on cell phone

•Eyes not on road

•Daydreaming

•Eating or drinking

•Adjusting vehicle controls

•Weather conditions

•Insect, animal or object entering or striking vehicle

•Document, book, map, directions or newspaper

•Medical or emotional impairment

•Other

The AAA and Virginia DMV listings have universal application, and give us a good foundation of distractions to recognize and avoid. Virginia’s Top 15 list includes a distraction that is in sort of a class of its own — another dreaded “D” — drowsiness, or driver fatigue.

We’ve all driven drowsy. Shift workers, medical residents, and people with sleep disorders are especially susceptible, but any one of us can fall victim to this ultimate distraction. We know it’s a problem, since sleepy-statistics have given birth to the rumble strips at the shoulder of highways across the nation. These noise-making devices that are built into the roads are designed to alert dozing drivers that they are about to leave the roadway. Studies show that they work!

The Harvard School of Public Health has studied and reported driver countermeasures for nodding off at the wheel. The most popular and effective means used by the drivers in the study were: drinking caffeinated beverages, having other (awake) passengers in the car, and driving in two- to four-hour segments rather than straight through. Other less effective methods used by these drivers to cope with the weariness included: listening to radio, singing, changing seating positions, eating or drinking, tensing muscles, sticking head out of window, regulating an extreme hot or cold interior climate through the cars’ heaters or AC units, cognitive attention games, smoking, or talking on a cell phone. There’s some “Catch 22s” in that list, though, because some of the activities that drivers use to stay awake are on the driver distraction lists too!

We drivers are faced with new distractions as time passes. GPS navigation aids and cell phones are among the newer distractions for drivers these days. Debate goes on about how much of a distraction these items may be, but here’s what the NHTSA has to say about cell phone use while driving: “Available research indicates that whether it is a hands-free or hand-held cell phone, the cognitive distraction is significant enough to degrade a driver’s performance. This can cause a driver to miss key visual and audio cues needed to avoid a crash.”

Identifying and acknowledging driving distraction is an effective step in controlling it.

We can’t eliminate all of it, and some of it (like the bee flying in the window) is out of our control. How we deal with fatigue and distraction is important; it may be better to get a bee sting than roll your car over while over reacting to the insect, and it’s probably best to pull over to a safe place to make your cell phone calls. Thinking about distraction, and preparing to deal with it is your responsibility — try to get good at it.

Thanks for your opinions — please keep them coming!