Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States among adolescents, accounting for 1.3 million deaths and 50 million injuries per year. Distracted driving is a major risk factor for many of these accidents, taking a tremendous toll on families and communities, both financially and emotionally. An increasing number of legislative efforts have been put in place to educate the public, reduce the incidence of motor vehicle accidents, and implement new regulatory approaches to prohibit distracted driving. The focus of this report is to investigate human brain activity in response to distraction--particularly during driving, debunk the myth of the brain's ability to multitask, and by extension, the futility of hands-free technologies while driving. This report also aims to increase awareness of the risks and consequences of distracted driving, discuss the problem in relation to texting and driving, and explore possible solutions to put an end to this risky behavior.
The act of driving itself already demands a great amount of focus and concentration from the driver. Adding a cell phone to the picture introduces additional challenges for the brain. Researchers at Monash University's Accident Research Centre have shown that multi-tasking between driving and text messaging increases the mental workload causing higher levels of stress and frustration . For instance, stress is heightened when shifting from driving on a local route to entering a highway or vice versa. Using a phone (checking a text message, posting a Facebook status) contributes to increasing the complexity of the task at hand. This exhausts the brain, weakens the operator’s driving abilities, and compromises th...
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In today’s day and age, there are so many excuses for distracted driving. Lives are put at risk every time a distracted motorist is on the road, and deaths have increased by a substantial amount in the last ten years. On Thursday, April 26th, 2014, one woman’s bad judgement cost her life (Hastings, 1). Not only was she affected, but her friends and family assuredly felt a pain in their hearts. In the few seconds it took Courtney Ann Sanford to post a few words on Facebook, it was enough to distract her from the road and to drive across another lane and through a median straight into a truck (Hastings, 1).
Pabst, Lora, and Pat Pheifer. "Caution, Teens: Effort to Raise Driving Age Ahead." StarTribune.com Web. 15 Mar. 2010. .
Another negative effect that mobile phones impair is mental focus while driving. People who are driving have their minds on the task in front of them with their full attention on the road. So when a person is conversing on a phone their attention is split as he or she is trying to multi-task both talking and driving at the same time. An article written by Nathan Seppa, the cause of “split attention”, he noted that David Strayer a psychology professor and his team studied to understand what impairs drivers when they talk on the phone. They conducted an experiment with drivers to see the effects of how varies distractions compare to each other. Strayer’s team accompanied drivers and assign them different distractive tasks while they maintain their eyes on the road in order to assess the effects. In the team’s findings they found that one most distracting tasks was talking on a mobile phone, which caused a driver’s performance to decline significantly. The typical tasks that drivers should perform on a regular basis, such as observing traffic changes, looking in rear-view mirrors, and watching for pedestrians was reduced overall (Seppa). Not many people can multi-task a conversation and driving at the same time without some drawbacks. Another drawback to a person focus was “unintentional blindness”, described by Simons, as “looking at something and not seeing it” (Seppa). So a person who is talking on a phone can end up not seeing an object whether it is a car, a stop sign or a pedestrian that is right in front of him and her. Many experiments were conducted by professionals to understand how “unintentional blindness” can affect a person’s perception, but one notable professional, Simmons, conducted a test of this concept:
According to Stephanie Hanes in the essay “Texting While Driving Is as Dangerous as Drunk Driving,” a driver on a phone and those talking on a phone are four times likely to crash. This statistic shows how dangerous using the phone or even texting is while driving. As technology has increased, so has the use of cellphone. Distracted driving has caused an increase in car fatalities and disasters. However, distracted driving can be prevented if drivers take precautions, but no matter what we do, trouble will always be spelling on the road.
One day Chandler Gerber 23, of Bluffton collided with an Amish buggy back in April of 2012. A three year old boy and a five year old girl were killed. A 17 year old boy who was in critical condition died several days later. Chandler was sending a text that said “ I love you” to his wife when he caused the accident. Drivers who were texting were 23.2 times more likely to crash to those who weren’t texting (Cell Phones and Texting). The increasing amount of crashes caused from texting and driving and growing and becoming more of a problem. Distracted driving is an increasing problem in the United States resulting in many accidents, but a solution to the problem would be banning cellphones while driving.
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
The leading cause of death for U.S. teenagers is motor vehicle accidents. More than 5,000 of our teens die each year in crashes. For the purpose of this topic, “teenagers” encompasses ages ranging from 15- to 20-year-olds. I am proposing legislation to address this issue.
Most of the drivers are likely to mix up driving and messaging from their cell phones while driving regardless of the laws standing on the issues, and danger posed to them. A majority of those drivers engaging in this act do not contemplate the possible detrimental effects from their actions. Research has indicated that texting while driving contributes to road accidents significantly. This situation is sufficiently bad to the extent that there are more accidents caused by messaging while driving than those caused by drunken driving (Fumento n.p.). From the foregoing statements, this essay seeks to support the laws, which outlaws texting while driving by highlighting how dangerous it is for drivers to massage while driving.
“The National Safety Council Looks into New Study on the Brain’s Ability to Safely Drive and use a Cell Phone.” Entertainment Close-up 17 June 2013. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
“If you think you can call, text and drive at the same time, you cannot. That message you can’t wait to send could kill. Distracted driving is an epidemic that is sweeping through our country, claiming people’s live and destroying families.” -Oprah Winfrey
Thesis statement: Risks of texting while driving over the past few years has become a key topic for many Americans through the country. It has been the cause of numerous deaths and injuries and remains a vast disturbance for drivers. Hence driving is one of the greatest common causes of misfortunes on roads. This can result in, physical visual and cognitive distraction and significantly increases the amount of time a driver devotes not looking at the road. Therefore police officers should seize the phones of those who text and drive.
Not only does it put the driver of the car in danger, but it also puts the passengers and the surrounding cars at risk. Using a cell phone while driving has been proven to be just as dangerous as driving under the influence. At any given moment during the day, around 800,000 people are driving cars while using a hand-held device, which unfortunately puts everyone else at risk of a car crash. In the recent year, 21% of fatal car crashes involved the use of a cellular device (Prof. David J. Hanson, 1997-2015). Unfortunately, humans, especially teenagers, cannot put down their cell phones while they drive due to the many notifications they receive. They are addicted. This points back to how the cell phones are affecting the mental health of humans. In 2007, Bailey Goodman, a seventeen-year-old, was killed along with four of her friends in a car accident. Goodman
One of the dangers of texting while driving at the same time is the attention it takes away from the road. A driver, who is focused on looking at their phone, is not paying enough attention to other cars or what is happening around them. Something as simple as a car stopping in front of them can cause serious damage to the driver and to the other car. “Texting” while driving is the act of composing, sending, or reading text messages, email, or making other similar use of the internet on a mobile device while operating a motor vehicle, such as an automobile, truck, or train (Reuters). Many people and authorities have viewed it as a dangerous practice. It is on occasion like this, where familiarity with the road and surrounding will not make it easier for the driver to look at their cell phone. The probabilities of drivers texting on the cell phone and getting into accidents are only getting higher. Cell phone use while driving accounts for a major cause of
Research has proven that it is difficult to concentrate on driving and talking at the same time. A recent British study showed that talking on a mobile phone while driving was more hazardous than operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Tests conducted by scientists for UK-based insurance firm, Direct Line, involved 20 subjects using a driving simulator to test reaction times and driving performance and compared this to when drivers had too much to drink. The results showed drivers' reaction times were, on average, 30 percent slower when talking on a handheld mobile phone than when legally drunk - and nearly 50 percent slower than under normal driving conditions. The tests also showed that drivers talking on phones were less able than drunk drivers to maintain a constant speed, and they had greater difficulty keeping a safe distance from the car in front.
Nevertheless, hands-free phones are just as disturbing as hand held phones. They both serve the same purpose when it comes to distracting the driver from state of the road. Thus, hand held devices do not increase safety, and I have observed this when using the cell phones as I drive. At the same time, I have noticed that my reaction time significantly reduced, and I almost caused an accident. When I look at this slow reaction, I compare it to that of an old...