- Distractions take your attention away from driving.
- Can cause collisions, resulting in injury, death or property damage.
- Can occur inside or outside the vehicle.
- 8% of crashes involved an external distraction and 2% of crashes involve an internal distraction.
Effects
- Slow perception, delayed decision making and improper reactions
Physical Distractions
- Reaching for an object
Mental Distractions
- Thinking about something that happened during the day
Cell/Mobile Phones
- Use severely restricted due to their impact on driving.
- Can only use a hands free mobile phone.
- CDL will be disqualified after two or more convictions of using hand-held mobile use while operating a CMV.
- Odds are being in a safety critical event is 6 times greater in dialing a mobile phone.
- Dialing takes your eyes off the roadway for an average of 3.8 seconds.
- Texting defined as sending/receiving messages, emails, instant messages, accessing the Internet.
- Texting takes more attention off the road than driving.
- Odds of being in a safety critical event is 23.2 times greater for texting drivers.
Other Distracted Drivers
- Pay attention for inconsistent driving around you.
- Give plenty of room and maintain a safe following distance.
Aggressive Driving
- Don’t be aggressive even when the drivers around you are aggressive.
- Some strategies:
- Listen to easy listening music.
- Give the drive your full attention.
- Be realistic about travel time.
- Give other drivers the benefit of the doubt.
- Slow down and keep following distance reasonable.
- Drive appropriately in left lane.
- Avoid gestures, keep your hands on the wheel.
- When confronted by an aggressive driver:
- Make every attempt to get out of their way.
- Do not challenge them, let go of your pride.
- Ignore gestures.
- Report aggressive drivers to the authorities.
- Call the police if necessary and safe to do so.
- Try to defuse a situation so it doesn’t end in road rage.