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Essay on distracted drivers
Essay on distracted drivers
Essay on how distractions affect driving
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Distracted Over the past two and half decades I have attended the Buffalo New Car Auto Show, year after year noticing manufacturing trends. The latest trend being touch screen controls. Basically these are an iPad or Android device mounted on or in the dash capable of syncing or being connected to your smartphone. This enables you to stay connected to your contacts while driving, allowing you to become distracted. The question of safety for me and others seems to be no concern to some drivers. The only concern for auto manufacturers is the bottom line. What is distracted driving? Distracted driving is any activity that diverts a person’s attention away from the task of driving. All distractions endanger the driver, passenger and bystander safety Types of …show more content…
The government guidelines advise that drivers should be able to complete the tasks in a series of one and half or two second glances for a total of no more than twelve seconds. At highway speeds of sixty five miles per hour that equates to over ninety feet per second at fifty five miles per hour it is over eighty feet per second and at thirty miles per hour its over forty four feet per second (Mlot, Stephanie). Potential unsafe levels of mental interruption last between fifteen and twenty seven seconds after completing a distracting task. Peter Kissinger, CEO of AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety states “The lasting effects of mental distraction pose a hidden danger that would likely come as a surprise to most drivers”. The results indicate motorists could miss stop signs, pedestrians and other vehicles while the mind is readjusting to the task of driving (Mlot). A recent study testing three phone platforms in ten vehicles manufactured in 2015, rated mental distraction on a five point scale from mild to maximum levels of disturbance. The best vehicle earned a cognitive distraction rating of 2.4 the worst earned a 4.6. AAA considers anything rated two or higher to be potentially dangerous
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Fatality states that texting while driving causes nearly eleven teen deaths every day and 330,000 injuries per year. Almost 25 percent of all car accidents involve someone who was texting as they were driving; that is 1.3 million crashes. Texting while driving is the number one distraction for majority of drivers. Five seconds is the minimal amount of time a driver’s attention is taken from the road while using a cell phone. With that being said, if one is traveling at 55mph, five seconds is equal to driving the length of a football field without paying attention to the road.
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 term “distracted driving” may be hard to define, but, simply, it is the act of driving while being engaged in any activity. Stephanie Hanes describes in her article, how texting is a deadly epidemic. The distractions occurring while we drive on the road endangers the lives of drivers and passengers around us. Andrew Lavallee explains in his article “Companies build Services to End Texting and Driving,” how texting is wildly popular these days. David Andreatta points out some activities which drivers are engaged in while on road, in his article “Texting and Driving Can Spell Disaster.”
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated about 9 people die every day in the U.S. due to a distracted driver. A distracted driver is someone who while driving, is being engaged in other activities such as texting, eating, and talking to the passenger. There are three different types of distractions while driving; visual distractions, manual distractions, and cognitive distractions. These types of distractions are very dangerous while driving and there are many things that can be done to prevent or control these distractions.
What is considered to be distracted driving in today’s world, is it just using devices or talking. Well in research article from BMC Public Health, “DD is an activity that can take a driver’s eyes off the road and divert his/her attention to something else”. Distracted driving includes but is not limited to using a mobile device, using a GPS, personal hygiene, talking to passengers, reading, even just adjusting the radio/stereo and list goes on and on. So how do adults and teen drivers classify these, well it is broken down in to 3 different parts. Visual, Manual, and Cognitive. Each equal having a negative effect on adult and teen drivers, cause them to become a DD. These three categories of DD, as found in Maclean’s Magazine, that each one has a certain effect on adult and teen drivers causing them to lose focus on the road in which makes them unaware of their surroundings. The Visual side is anything that cause the adult or teen driver to take their eyes off the road in which causing them to place their eyes on something else. The Manual side is in which the adult or teen driver takes his/hers hands off the wheel for something else in which takes control of motor vehicle away from driver.
Most people think of someone using their cell phone while driving when they hear distracted driving, but it it much more than that. Distracted driving is when someone who is behind the wheel get distracted by either taking their hands off the wheel or take their mind of driving, which can cause them to get into an accident (paragraph 2). Distracted driving is broken down into three main parts, manual distractions which is taking your hands off the steering wheel, visual distractions which is taking your center of attention off the road and cognitive distraction which is when your mind is not focused on driving and just starts drifting away (paragraph 3). Cell phone use is easily the biggest cause of distracted driving compared to eating, talking, and others because using your cell phone requires visual, manual and cognitive attention from the person behind the wheel and in a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, the amount of people who break the law and use a handheld device behind the wheel increases every single year. An estimated amount of more than, six hundred thousand people use their phone while driving. Distracted driving has quickly risen and developed in the past few years and is becoming an enormous problem. In a recent study, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), showed statistics of approximately three thousand, one hundred fifty
Have you ever been on a cell phone while driving or seen someone on his or her cell phone while driving? This is distracted driving at its finest. Whether you are looking at a text, changing radio stations, applying makeup, or anything else that takes your mind or eyes off the road is distracted driving. Distracted driving killed around 3,000 people in 2011 (Bauers). Car crashes are the leading cause of teenagers in the United States. If you don’t think you are distracted behind the wheel think again, many people think they aren’t distracted till something bad happens to them, like a crash, driving into a ditch, or running a red light and get a ticket for it. Distracted driving is a major problem and most people don’t know their distracted or what is a distraction to him or her.
Due to the recent event of a child dying in a car accident, because of a distracted driver on his or her phone the issue of who should be held responsible in this situation has arisen. It is quite obvious that the distracted driver should be entirely held responsible for the incident and none of the blame should be put on Apple. It is constantly emphasized in the modern world that people should not be on their phones when driving or any other technology. It is also common knowledge that people should not be distracting themselves when driving. Companies have also gone out of their way to avoid distractions to reduce risk with the innovation of hands free headsets and voice command. As stated by Mangu-ward, “Technology can help us make good
Distracted driving: the practice of driving a motor vehicle while engaged in another activity. Anything besides focusing on the road can be considered distracted driving. Most people would think that the only real distraction while driving is the use of a cell phone, however, that is entirely untrue. There are people that give the term, distracted driving, a whole new meaning. People do everything from fixing their makeup to shaving while driving in their cars. Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of car crashes in the United States.
When you think about distracted driving, you may think about teenagers texting or talking while they are driving; however, distracted driving includes much more than those two behaviors.
We as a society need to all take responsibility when we are on the road and avoid the many temptations and distractions surrounding us. Distracted driving is dangerous plain and simple. Some may be willing to take the risk because they have never had an accident while behind the wheel. But it’s
Being distracted behind the wheel of a car can be very dangerous. Even taking your eyes off the road for a split second can be dangerous. Now of days we have a lot more things that can distract us like social media and text messaging and it doesn’t matter if you're a professional driver or if you're terrible at driving, it doesn’t matter because if you're looking down at your screen, how are you watching the road? These are things that can be a factor in your choice to do this or not. People say, well I am a great driver so I will be fine but really if you're such a great driver than you should know that you need to see to be a good driver.
A distraction is defined as any activity that takes a driver’s attention away from driving, In short, a simple drink of water is a diversion, but the most significant hindrance is texting. In mid 2017, Consumer Reports rated Tesla Model S the best ultra-luxury car earning a perfect score of 100 (Valdes-Depena, 2017). Conversely,
In 2012, 3,328 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver by cellphone, compared to 3,360 in 2011. An additional, 421,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver in 2012, a 9% increase from the 387,000 people injured in 2011. 31% of U.S. drivers ages 18-64 reported that they had read or sent text messages or email messages while driving at least once within the 30 days before they were surveyed (Textinganddrivingsafety Ass). People always think that accident will happen for others due to lack of driving skills or high speed. People who text and drive think that they have the ability to text and handle the car at the same time but they are not actually aware of their ability and the human perception which can be changed by distractions such as cellphones. The human-brain perception time; is how long the driver takes to see the hazard and the brain to require an immediate reaction to avoid the danger. This perception time can be as long as 0.3 to 0.5 second. When the eyes see the hazard and brain realizes the danger then the human reaction happens. Reaction time can vary from 0.3 to 0.7 second. Human perception and reaction times can be effected by factors like alcohol, drugs and especially cellphones. A perception and reaction time can go up to 3 or 4 seconds while someone is texting or calling. 4 seconds at 60
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