Multitasking motorists drive insurers to distraction

CHICAGO — If you aren’t concerned about who shares the road with you and what they might be doing while driving, you should be.

Drivers around you are gabbing on a cell phone, eating, fiddling with the stereo, applying makeup or trying to retrieve a text message — at the least. Some could be doing two or more of those at once.

“Americans are doing just about everything in their car except focusing on driving,” said Bill Windsor, associate vice president of safety for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.

A Nationwide survey finds that three-fourths of drivers admitted to driving while drowsy, 31 percent said they daydream and 38 percent said they had driven somewhere with no recollection of doing it.

There’s someone behind the wheel of every vehicle, but there’s not telling where their eyes and minds are.

“It really requires you to expect the unexpected and be a better defensive driver,” Windsor said. “You don’t know what others are going to do.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that in nearly 80 percent of accidents the driver was distracted three seconds or less before the crash.

That’s not news to Nationwide.

More than 80 percent of the 1,200 people who responded to its survey identified themselves as “multitaskers,” drivers who do at least one other thing besides mind the helm. Motorists age 18 to 27 were the least focused on driving, with 35 percent saying they always multitask.

Cell phones are frequent culprits, with 73 percent saying they used them while driving. Only adjusting the stereo (82 percent) and sipping a beverage (80 percent) topped phones among non-driving tasks.

A 2005 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concluded that using a cell phone increases the chances of having an injury-causing accident four times.

“More and more drivers expect their vehicles to be an office away from the office and an entertainment center. That’s certainly not a good thing,” said Anne McCartt, vice president of research for the institute.

And research by NHTSA and the insurance institute shows talking is as bad dialing the call.

“The conversation is a major distraction,” McCartt said “Hands-free phones don’t eliminate the cognitive distractions.”

But cell phones can’t be singled out.

One out of five drivers in Nationwide’s survey said they read and send text or instant messages. Among 18- to 27-year-olds, it was 37 percent, which Hudson finds particularly alarming because younger drivers have more accidents.

“Three seconds at 65 miles per hour will take you the length of a football field. Drivers won’t see any of that if they’re looking down,” he said.

Multitasking has become routine, especially among youngsters who grew up with cell phones and e-mail. Kids often send messages while doing homework, for example, to maintain almost constant contact with friends.

“They’re just carrying it over to the car,” Hudson said. “But multitasking while driving is a lot different than when you’re doing homework.”

And this only scratches the surface, according to Nationwide.

Two-thirds said they eat snacks while driving, and 41 percent said they enjoy meals on wheels.

Five percent read a book, newspaper or magazine, and 2 percent shave.

NHTSA cites alcohol as a factor in nearly 40 percent of traffic fatalities, and 4 percent of drivers in the Nationwide survey confessed to driving while drunk. Three percent said they have driven with open liquor containers in their vehicle.

Some responses sounded like bragging or exaggeration, but they illustrate that driving often is secondary for those behind the wheel. A woman from San Antonio, for example, said she painted her toenails while driving, and a young man from Phoenix has held a phone with one hand and curled his hair with the other, steering with his knees.

A mother from Memphis bottle-fed her baby, who was properly seated in the back seat.

“The bottom line is that if it can be done in the kitchen, bathroom or bedroom, it should not be done in the car,” Hudson said.

Still not too worried?

The Illinois Secretary of State estimates that 4.5 percent of the 9.4 million registered vehicles in Illinois are uninsured based on an annual random mail survey of owners. Those nearly 425,000 drivers are not simply neglectful, they are flouting the law.

But the Insurance Research Council puts the number of uninsured at 16 percent, or 1.5 million. It bases that on claims by motorists injured by uninsured drivers. Nationally, the number is 15 percent of drivers.