Personal Injury Law

New York Car Accidents--Distracted Driving A Serious Problem

By Mark Siesel, Esq.

According to a study by the Network of Employers For Traffic Safety, distracted driving is a factor in 25% to 30% of all car accidents, or 4,000 car crashes every day. As hard as it is to believe, drivers make an average of 200 decisions for every mile traveled, making it all the more critical that your attention is on the road, not on that important meeting you are heading to or a cell phone call you need to make in the car. The same study found that distracted drivers fail to recognize potential safety hazards on the road and react more slowly to traffic conditions, decreasing their margin of safety.

To know if you are driving distracted, take the following test: Have you ever slammed on your brakes because you didn't see the car in front of you stop? Run a stop sign unintentionally? Forgot entirely that you drove from one place to another? If so, you have been "driving while distracted."

The study identified the percentages of distracting activities that drivers engage in: 96% talk to their passengers; 89% adjust vehicle climate and radio controls; 74% eat a meal or snack; 51% use a cell phone; 41% tend to children; 34% read a map; and 19% groom themselves for work.

It is certainly a given that you will be speaking with your children in the car, but I have seen people shaving, putting on makeup, reading a map, making a cell phone call with no hands on the wheel, adjusting their radio, and turning around to speak with their passengers on many occasions, and have had to avert numerous wayward drivers due to these activities.

The best advice is to eat that snack, make that call, comb your hair and get your directions before getting on the car, so we can all be safer on the roads!

Full post as published by New York Legal Blog on December 26, 2008 (boomark / email).