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Distracted Driving: Everyone Hates It, But Most of Us Do It, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Insurance company Esurance has a new study out on distracted driving, and it makes for interesting reading. Almost everyone agrees distracted driving is bad, yet it's still remarkably prevalent. Even drivers who report rarely driving distracted also report that they engage in distracting behaviors. The study also raises some questions about the growing complexity of modern vehicles, particularly the user interfaces they confront us with. The Esurance report includes survey data from more than a thousand participants. More than 90 percent said that browsing for apps, texting, and emailing were distracting. Yet more than half of daily commuters admitted to doing it. The survey also found that the longer your commute, the greater the chance is you'll get distracted, probably by your phone. Even participants who reported they were "rarely distracted" admitted to distracting behavior like talking on the phone or even viewing GPS Navigation data. (Any task performed while driving should be able to be performed in under two seconds to avoid becoming a distraction.)
My dash cam has captured two car accidents where you can clearly see the driver is playing with their phone. One where a woman with a baby and a toddler in the car drove at 35mph directly into the back of a work van while wandering between lanes. Another where a guy simply drifted off the road and into a rain ditch at 45mph causing the car to go airborne and do a 360 spin in mid air. I gave the videos to police and the insurance companies. Everyone should be using a dash cam.
People follow far too closely.
From the summary:
"Any task performed while driving should be able to be performed in under two seconds to avoid becoming a distraction"
The rule of thumb for vehicle separation on highways is to leave two seconds between you and the vehicle ahead. The next time you are on a busy highway, Note how few drivers actually leave that much space. And when you do leave such a gap some jockey cuts right in.
The two misbehaviours taken together are leaving a lot of wreckage around.
Looking at your GPS: Bad
Yelling at your fighting kids in the back seat: Good.
What I can't stand about these surveys and studies is that they all seemed pre-ordained to get the results the researchers are looking for. I have not doubt that driving solo, the radio pre-set before you leave with no food or beverage will give you the maximum amount of attention to pay to the road. But the world doesn't operate like that. People have others in the car, hold hot coffee and change radio stations.
When all these things are present, when is it bad? Is there no difference between going through a school zone at 8:30 and driving on a lightly traveled interstate?
All discussions seem to be centered around the stupidest, least coordinated person driving through a congested street with kids jumping out from between parked cars. There's no allowance made for adjusting to the environment. There are those who argue you must have 2 hands on the steering wheel at all times. And yet, we don't outlaw one-armed drivers or manual transmissions. Does taking your hand off the wheel to shift while operating the clutch with your foot distract you from the steering and observing the road? The absolutists will probably argue that it does, and is less safe.
How many kids can a parent have in the car at once? One? Two will eventually fight. And with the current laws they all have to be in the back seat that will trigger looking in mirrors ( rear view and special ones just for viewing the back seat ) or turning around. How about a study showing the impact of 1, 2 3 or 4 kids i the car with a parent? Not likely, because distraction by looking in the mirror when talking to your kid is being a "good parent" while looking at the radio to change the station is "bad driving".
Every single study is just another attempt to wrap an option in statistics .
The thing is, because we drive safely on a daily basis and probably had avoided some accident do to our quick reflexes. We think ourselves as excellent drivers, however in the matter of fact, we are nearly all average drivers, who makes mistakes from time to time.
So while driving on a daily bases you have ran across 1 or 2 idiot drivers. out of the thousands of cars that are on the road that you need to interact on your drive. However chances are that idiot driver is just as good driver as you are, it is just not a good day for them
I know once in a while I am not having a good day, I miss an exit, a car is in the blind spot, my foot is a little to heavy or light on the petal... A slew of stuff where I could had been killed if not for the reflexes of the other drivers. Now this isn't a daily problem, most days I go along no problems, I am a perfectly boring motorist. But lets say I have 1 bad day where I make a lapse of judgement for a few seconds. During that time, I am the Idiot driver who is a problem. Now we multiply the problem with thousands of drivers who are perfectly good drivers 99.9% of the time. that still means there there is at least 1 in 1000 driver on the road interacting with you nearly every day.
For me to be safe, I need to admit my faults as an imperfect driver, this humility means I will normally take extra percussion just in case I do something stupid. To risk contradicting myself the drivers who see themselves as good or excellent drivers often put themselves and other in more danger, because they feel they can successfully navigate a world with less tolerances. But still they are fine 99.8% of the time. However that 1/1000 extra causes that 1 problem driver a day to 2 a day.
There are things that distract us all the time, and it is nearly impossible to legislate all of them. Just being in a bad mood can be just as dangerous as driving on the phone. However if there are things we can control, we should. Drunk/Drugged driving, Talking/Texting, Tends to be the biggest thing.
But other things distract too. The reason why when we are lost in the car, your turn down the radio. Is because you need less distractions to navigate an unfamiliar area.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.