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Essay on how distractions affect driving
Essay on how distractions affect driving
Essay on how distractions affect driving
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Driving while distracted is deadly. Texting is involved in about 25% of all car accidents in the US and that is only texting. Activities such as tuning or listening to a radio, eating and drinking, monitoring children and pets, or even conversing with a passenger, all of these mentally engaging activities, reduce driving performance leaving you at a greater risk for crashing.
Driving while distracted could be deadly, “How the Brain Reacts” by Marcel Just and Tim Keller, an informative article tells about how the brain reacts to driving while distracted. They suggest that driving while engaging the brain in mentally demanding circumstances is dangerous. Activities such as “tuning or listening to a radio, eating and drinking, monitoring children or pets, or even conversing with the
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passenger-would also cause reduced driving performance.” This goes to show how risky driving while distracted really is and how many ways there are to be distracted. “Thirty-nine-states have banned texting while driving” an informative article “The Science Behind Distracted Driving” from KUTV Austin states states. Even though thirty-nine states have banned texting while driving, texting is still involved in about 25% of all car accidents in the US. More states should ban texting while driving and make the penalty for doing so, more severe than twenty dollars, as California has it. Additionally, texting is not the only cause for distracting us; other phone activities such as “checking email, updating social media…” etc.
are all activities distracting drivers, according to “The Science Behind Distracted Driving”, an informative article from KUTV Austin. While all these activities are convenient and keep us productive, they should be reserved for when you are not driving. Texting diverts your attention from the road for approximately five seconds at a time, a lot could happen in those five seconds. It is better to leave your phone usage for when you are off the road. Another disturbance is hearing spoken words, It diverts your brain from the task at hand. “with spoken language, a listener cannot willfully stop the processing of a spoken utterance”, “How the Brain Reacts”, an informative article by Marcel Just and Tim Keller states. What this goes to say is that the human brain cannot choose to not process spoken words, so if they are listening to the radio or a passenger, they cannot choose to not process the words and in turn, have their attention stolen from the road. Drivers should be focused on the road and should not have disturbances presented to
them. In conclusion, drivers should not have their attention diverted from the road by phones,
The several effects of distracted driving are deadly. Andrew Lavallee points out that “texting while driving is unsafe. Not only are a driver’s eyes off the road, one or both hands are off the wheel.” “We think it is incompatible with safe driving” (qtd. in Lavallee). “Study upon study showed that talking on a cellphone was far more dangerous than she’d realized – that a driver on a phone had the same reaction speed as someone legally intoxicated, that those talking on a phone behind the wheel are four times as likely to crash” (qtd. in Hanes). Stephanie Hanes also mentions that, “Unlike a conversation with a passenger, the electronic conversation takes a driver into a virtual space away from the road.” Subsequently, this causes severe problems and deadly
The Harvard Center of Risk Analysis preformed a study, they studied the road and people who text while they drive. Results show that texting behind the wheel causes 330,000 injuries and 2,600 deaths a year. People who talk or text on the phone are just as impaired or even more impaired as a drunk driver. A study was performed at the University of Utah, it shows that the participants crashed when they were texting while driving but when they were intoxicated, they did not crash. This shows that texting while driving takes your focus off of the road and into the conversation you are having on the phone. Also, the University of Utah has proven that hand free devices do not make driving any safer. But, driving with passengers and talking to them makes drivers safer. Passengers help inform drivers of possible risks on the
Distracted driving refers to a wide range of conditions involving the driver of the vehicle not being alert and attentive to the task of driving. These distractions can mean anything from texting and making phone calls to eating and other activities. Driving a motor vehicle while simultaneously being engaged in a different task can and is a fatal mistake that
The top two age groups that are involved in car accidents due to distracted driving are is aged twenty and under with 16% and ages 20-29 with 13% (paragraph 4). Some people may ask how many people actually use their phones while behind the wheel between all drivers, and at any time of the day across America, approximately over six hundred thousand drivers use their cell phone while driving, and that number has been growing and growing since 2010. Teens are more involved in distracted driving accidents than older people aged thirty and up. A study about teens and adults involved in distracted driving accidents displayed that teen drivers are FOUR times more likely to get into a fatal car accident due to distracted driving than an adult (paragraph 11). But everyone is the same when it comes to distracted driving. Many young drivers know the dangers of texting and driving, but just can’t stop it because they are addicted to their cell phones. “Nor is it possible to overestimate how addicted Americans are to their cellphones. In a Transportation Department survey released this week, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said talking on a handheld phone was "very or somewhat unsafe." Yet 77% reported answering calls while driving, and 41% said they made calls.” Some helpful tips to help you stop texting and
Texting and driving involves all three types so you can predict the outcome isn’t too much in our favor (Distracted Driving, 2015). According to the National Safety Council (NDC), the big myth today is that people are capable of multitasking, and even worse multitask while driving, but in fact, the human brain cannot do such a thing. People may be walking and chewing gum at the same time, but that is because those actions involve both a thinking task, and a non-thinking task. Driving and talking on the phone at the same time is risky though because it requires both to be used. Instead of attending to both actions simultaneously, the brain quickly shifts between two cognitive activities (The Great Multitasking, 2010). Taken from a new report from the NSC ,drivers that tend to talk on cell phones often enter a state of what is called “inattention blindness” and when this occurs, they may fail to see up to 50 percent of what is ahead of them (NSC Looks Inside, 2010). The United States Department of Transportation says, "text messaging while driving creates a crash risk 23 times higher than driving while not distracted,” (Distracted Driving, 2015). That makes driving
The cdc.gov says, "Everyday more that 9 people are killed in the united states and more than 1,153 people are injured in car crashes that are reported involving a distracted driver."Distracted driving is driving while doing another activity that takes drivers ' attention away from driving. An everyday activity that is dangerous is being distracted while driving. Three situations that can cause driving to be dangerous are texting while driving, being under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs while operating a vehicle,being distracted by passengers inside the car.
According to Ian Mulgrew, a journalist/author from Canada, many accidents are blamed on distracted driving and most of the distractions are caused by cell phone usage (Mulgrew). This shows that accidents are being caused by texting and driving. A majority of people have busy lives that leaves them to get things done while on the road. Texting or using a cell phone while driving is very hazardous to yourself and the people surrounding you. Most people are against this action is because it causes many car accidents every year. Did you know that texting while driving is one of the longest eyes-off-the road time of distracted driving activities? According to DWI, text messaging makes a crash up to 23 times more likely. While other activities like, dialing, talking or listening or reaching for a device is less likely. While driving, adults and teenagers cannot resist the urge to pick up their cell phone and send a text or respond to one. When a
A. People are constantly fixated on their phones, checking Twitter, Facebook, and text messages. The use of a cell phones while driving is extremely distracting and dangerous to the person behind the wheel, and everyone else on the road as well.
Texting while driving is referred to as distracted driving. "Distracted driving continues to be the number one leading cause of car accidents in America. Talking on the phone, texting, eating, reading, grooming, and talking are just some of the ways drivers get distracted behind the wheel. Drivers who use a hand-held device are 4 times more likely to get into a car accident than drivers that pay attention to the road ahead. Individuals who text message while driving are 23 times more likely to get into an accident. Do not risk your safety or your life. Put everything down and pay attention to the road ahead. It is the single most important thing you can do today to reduce your risk of getting into a
First and foremost, the risk of using a phone while driving is a big chance of an accident more than what the people think. According to the Harvard study “Texting while driving and other forms of distracted driving are responsible for more than 1 million crashes, 400,000 injuries, and 3,000 deaths in the U.S. each year—and those numbers are likely to in...
I, as a driver, too, think that cell phone use while driving is a distraction. Even though I personally don’t own a phone, I have used one. I noticed that talking on the cellular phone and driving doesn’t make it hard to focus on the road. But it is difficult and a major distraction to dial-up a number without losing focus on the road. Dialing a number is the main distraction about cel...
One distraction that has stirred up a lot of controversy recently is texting while driving, the bottom line is you should never text and drive, try not to even have the phone in the car with you so you do not become tempted to use it. Even though that would be ideal, we all know people are glued to their phone 24/7, so if you are in dire need of using the phone behind the wheel try and keep the texts short so you can keep full concentration on driving and getting to your destination safe, also if you have a newer model car you can try and sync your phone up to the bluetooth so you are able to call and text hands free (edmunds.com,para1). "Any parent of an American teenager can tell you how hard it can be to pry their child 's attention away from a smartphone screen. But it turns out that mobile devices can be a big distraction for grownups, too." - Christian Science Monitor. (sirs.com,para.11).People believe we should try and ban cell phones from behind the wheel but that simply would never be able to happen, the generation that is getting their licenses now has grown up in the “digital age”, they are constantly connected to their phones (some people say kids have their phones glued to their hands) and for some that cannot put it down they will have to be ok with paying for using it in the car. Another major distraction that could easily affect you or your fellow drivers is road rage. Road rage is a serious issue if encountered on the road and can lead to death if it is serious enough, if you are to encounter someone on the road with rage try and stay calm and do not use any gestures that would anger the driver more, if you are in a multi lane highway try and move to an open lane so they are able to pass you and not get any more infuriated, and lastly if the rage occurs over taking somebody 's spot in the parking lot just left them have the
Janet P. Froetscher once said," talking a cell phone while driving makes a person four times more likely to be in the crash. This much higher risk than most other distracting activities, including eating, drinking, reading billboards, listening to the radio, or talking to other
The main distraction of driving is cell phones. Most adults and teens will engage in texting and driving. Due to the major issue of texting and driving many campaigns have been launched, one being launched by AT&T “when it comes to texting and driving, it can wait.” This campaign has many drivers take the pledge to no longer use their phone when driving, there is an available app that will send out automatic messages to anybody that sends a while the individual is driving. When someone is driving at the rate of 55 miles per hour for only 4.6 seconds, it will equal the length of a football field, 100 yards. So, even stopping full vision from the road for a few seconds will still risk serious danger. Another cause of distracted driving is being exhausted or tired, doing so will cause a much slower reaction time. The slower reaction time causes many of the accidents that happen when people are tired. Another possibility is falling asleep behind the wheel even for a few seconds you could drift, or swerv into another lane and hit another car causing a major or fatal car accident. When taking driving classes, the students within the class will hear the saying “stay alert, stay alive.” The final major distraction of driving is eating and drinking. One of the problems of eating and drinking while driving is that it causes both a visual and manual distraction. When removing your eyes from the road many dangers will be
They may be answering a call, and they need to look at the screen, they may be reading a text message, or they may be reading a hilarious tweet. All this will only lead to an accident since the driver is not visually attached to the road. Cognitive distractions tend to focus more on the mental state of the driver while he is using the phone. The act of using the device requires some form of mental concentration, and that will only mean that the driver cannot focus on driving (Orlowske and Luyben 228). They will end up causing a road accident since the parietal lobe of their brain is occupied.