Distracted Driver Awareness Month
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If you didn’t know, this month (April) is Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Distracted drivers are arguably one of the biggest causes of collisions out there on the road today, and yet we often don’t realise just how dangerous it can be. Maybe you’re trying to locate something in your vehicle, maybe you’ve just got your mind on other things – it can seem harmless at the time, but if a motorist close by also isn’t paying attention then a collision could well happen.
In this article, we’re going to be covering some of the most common driver distractions so that you can become more mindful of them.
Taking phone calls
While taking a phone call by physically putting the phone to your ear is illegal, taking the call hands-free in your vehicle isn’t. However, just because you’re allowed to do it, this doesn’t mean it can’t still be a distraction. If you’re talking to someone else while out on the road, the chances are you aren’t paying very close attention to what’s going on outside the vehicle, which could well lead to a crash if the circumstances don’t favour you.
Pesky passengers
Whether it’s a chatty friend or a noisy child, passengers can be the most potent distractions of all. According to insurance company MORE THAN, 35% of young motorists say that they find their friends to be distracting whilst driving, and 62% said that the more passengers in a car at any one time, the more distracting it is overall.
External events
Distractions don’t always have to come from inside the car. In fact, external distractions can be even more difficult to overcome, particularly if they’re happening in a spot that’s not easy to see from your vehicle. It could be a crash that you’ve seen, it could be odd behaviour from another driver, it could even just be a particularly interesting billboard.
Eating, drinking and smoking
We’ve put all of these distractions together because they can all be seen as secondary tasks that people carry out when driving. While none of these activities are actually illegal, if you are caught by the police driving dangerously and you were eating, drinking or smoking, you could well be prosecuted.
Sat nav, audio and air-con adjustments
You can’t drive if you don’t know where you’re going, and you want to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible during your journey, but where possible, you should try and get all of these things sorted before the journey begins. Taking your eyes off the road to turn the radio down or to try and enter a postcode in a sat nav is extremely dangerous.
Being lost in thought
Arguably the most common distractions of all are mental distractions. It could be that you’re worried about work, worried about something in the future, or you might have just let your mind wander for a moment. The real problem with this sort of distraction is that you can’t actually tell when someone is distracted in this way.
According to a study by the AA, 49% of drivers are worried about arriving on time while driving, 34% think about work, 25% think about the future, and only 30% said they only think about driving or navigation while driving.
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