By Moses Akaigwe
Would you get behind the wheel when your Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is over the legal limit? If you answered no, would you still answer no when asked if you would use your phone behind the wheel? A recent study suggests that drivers do not hold the same reservations about driving while distracted (DWD).
Zendrive in the USA conducted their third annual ‘Distracted Driving Study,’ which analyses over 160 billion miles of data. The CEO of MasterDrive, Eugene Herbert, looks at the study’s findings: “People are 10 percent more distracted while driving and the number of cellphone addicts has doubled. This has resulted in DWD {driving while distracted} surpassing drunk driving and speeding to become the top roadway threat in USA.
“To place this in context, the study considers a phone addict to be someone who spends more than 10 percent of their time on the phone while driving. Additionally, the study says phone addicts are spending three times more of their drive time on their phones and spend 28% of drive time ignoring the roads.”
Some more information revealed by the study:
•Phone addicts are on the road 1.5 times more often than other drivers
•The study says while people know that DWD is a major problem, it does not concern them enough to change their behaviour
•While 90 percent of drivers claim to be safe drivers, 47 percent of these drivers admit to using their phones and driving 10 percent more often
•93 percent of phone addicts classify themselves as ‘pretty safe’ or ‘extremely safe’ drivers
The study shows us that DWD is becoming a bigger problem but is receiving less cognisance of how dangerous and reckless it is. “If being told that distracted driving is dangerous is not enough to motivate you to keep your phone out of your hand while driving, find other ways that will convince you.
“This can be searching online to view DWD videos: teens live-streaming and crashing or dashcam and CCTV footage of real-life examples of how it can go wrong. If this is still not enough, find practical ways to experience it in controlled environments. MasterDrive uses distracted driving goggles to simulate what you see when you drive using your phone. There is no escaping the truth when you experience this.”
Each driver needs to pay DWD the attention it needs. “If you are guilty of using your phone in the car, whatever the reason, give yourself the reminder you need to stop this behaviour before it is too late,” says Herbert.