What Constitutes Distracted Driving? The lives of Americans are influenced by the technology that this society has created. When going to a restaurant you see a great amount of individuals that are so focused on their technology rather than the person that is right in front of them. But, something that is more of an issue is that we see individuals driving down the road with their nose stuck in a phone, messing with the car devices, putting food to their mouths, and so much more. We as individuals are so focused on everything else that is surrounding us in the vehicle rather than the road.
So, what constitutes as distracted driving? There is a great amount of issues that associate with distracted driving. Distracted driving is something that most individuals seem to do, because there are so many different forms of what distracted driving is. According to SafeState, using cellphones, looking outside the vehicle, individuals in the car, reaching for a device in the vehicle, eating and drinking, adjusting seatbelts or mirrors, moving objects around in the vehicle include animals, messing with the radio or A/C in the vehicles, and last but not least smoking are all considered a distraction (SafeState, 2016).
When you think about it, really all that should be done in a vehicle is holding onto the wheel and putting 100% focus on the road. With each of these distraction there can be an accident that follows behind, an accident that no one wants to be in but we still do the distraction we shouldn’t do. Individuals seem to be focused on what’s going on with the world around them, but not focused on the road that is right in front of them and that’s something that needs to change to help save lives that are affected from distracted driving.
When individuals get into a vehicle they do not think that what they are doing could do arm to their selves or others that are around them. But, according to The 25 Scariest Texting and Driving Accident Statistics, this article states that each year around 1,300,000 individuals die due to road accidents (The 25 Scariest Texting and Driving Accident Statistics, 2017). Just by reading that number you have to stop and reread it because it’s just so hard to imagine that many individuals dying each year just from car accidents. When reading that number, you wondering why individuals still continue to do some form of distracting.
To put that number into even more of a reality according to U. S. and orld population clock, on April 17, 2017 there was 324,880,251 individuals living in the U. S. and out of that number each year a million lives in the U. S. are lost just from road accident (U. S. and World Population Clock, 2017). With that being just frim road accidents that’s a big number being that there so many other forms of death. (Start paragraph with own words) According to Distracted Driving: A Risk for All Business, distracted driving is placed into two different sections.
The first distraction is conscious distractions and the second distractions is unintentional distractions. Conscious distraction is when you are ntentionally doing something that could potentially cause an accident. This could be getting on your phone to look at a text or getting on the internet. On the other hand, for unintentional distractions is when you are not intestinally trying to cause an accident. With unintentional distraction it could be accidently falling asleep behind the wheel or even having a medical issue that makes it hard to pay attention to road.
At some point in our lives we all will be driving and at some point in our lives we will all be involved in some form of a distraction. With that being said we as a Country need to focus on lowering our distraction n vehicles to help prevent the loss of lives. When you think about distracted driving you think that there can only be so many different forms of what distracted driving means. But, the authors of Distracted Driving: Examining The Effects of In- Vehicle Task has also placed distracted driving into two types of categories.
According to William Horrey, Mary Lesch, and David Melton, the authors of Distracted Driving: Examining The Effects of In-Vehicle Task, distracted driving is placed in the terms of commercial driving and then placed into private driving (Horrey, Lesch, Melton, 2017). Commercial driving is when drivers are equired to do in vehicle work. For example, this could be a police officer that has to be on his/her lap tops having to fill out paper work. On the other hand, private driving is when someone chooses to do some form of task in the vehicle.
This would be when someone chooses to look at a text message that they have received. Start paragraph with own words) Nevile the author of In-Car Distractions and Their Impact on Driving Activities defines distracted driving as that individuals are not giving the appropriate attention while driving. He goes into talking about how that distracted driving can come from that individual riving as well as come from somewhere else perhaps another driver. According to Nevile, distracted driving doesn’t typically mean that an individual is impaired by alcohol or drug, that there is a great amount of other distractions that occur while operating a vehicle.
On page 6 of In-Car Distractions and Their Impact on Driving Activities there is a list of distraction and the distractions are mobile phones, entertainment systems, eating, maps, grooming and several other factors. States are starting to set rules on distracted driving to help prevent the danger of what distracted driving can do. But, there sn’t that many state that have this law set in place. According to John McCurley, the state of California’s law for distracted driving is that you cannot have a device in your hands while operating a vehicle, but they can use a hand free device.
The state of California’s law for drivers under the age of 18 is that they cannot use ant devices whether they are hands free or not (McCurley, 2017). I feel that this is a law that should be set in place for all states. This is something that can help with lowering the rate of fatalities. I believed that with this type of law set in place will make individuals be more hesitant to do the istraction being that some individuals do not like to break rules. On the other hand, there are other states that have distractive driving put in place differently.
For instant, the state of Wisconsin’s distracted driving law is that hand held bans are just when drivers are in highway construction areas (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute, 2017). Even though this is something that is only a small area that the use of hand held electronics is not allowed it better than having no law for it. Being that my father and boyfriend both work in construction I like to see that it’s at least in an area that men nd women are right next to fast moving vehicles. Another state that defines distracted driving differently is the state of Texas.
Texas distracted driving law is that hand held bans are only put in place when someone is driving through a school zone and being on school property (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute, 2017). I do feel that hand held bans should be at all times, but feel that having it placed in an area with kids is a well-deserved place to have hand held devices banned. I believe being that there are young children running around during recess time and if someone is n a phone and not paying attention to what is going on a child could easily run out into traffic and cause an accident that would be horrendous.
With having hand held devices ban drivers can be focused on watching the area to make sure children are not running around. Most of the time when we as individuals think of what distracted driving means we might have more of a simple meaning to it. For instance, we may have a similar definition as to the article Distracted Driving. According to Distracted Driving, distracted driving is when your attention is taken away from driving (Distracted Driving, 2017).