With virtually every American owning a cell phone, distracted driving has become a threat on the nation’s roads. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2008, almost 20 percent of all crashes involved some type of distraction, and nearly 6,000 people died in crashes involving a distracted driver.
It is clear that distracted driving is dangerous and potentially deadly. It comes in various forms, such as drivers doing one or any number of the following while driving: using the cell phone, texting, eating, drinking, talking with passengers, as well as using in-vehicle technologies and portable electronic devices.
NHTSA has identified three main types of distracted driving:
- Visual — Drivers taking their eyes off the road
- Manual — Drivers taking their hands off the wheel
- Cognitive — Drivers taking their minds off the task of driving
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that drivers who use a hand-held device are four times as likely to be involved in crashes serious enough to injure themselves. Based on research by Carnegie Mellon, “driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent.”
Recent efforts to ban distracted driving have been initiated by public and private organizations as well as concerned citizens. Under the slogan “Put It Down,” the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is leading the effort to put an end to distracted driving. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood has encouraged citizens to become his Facebook fan and follow him on Twitter.
This past September, DOT held a Distracted Driving Summit in Washington, D.C. to examine the full spectrum of distracted driving across transportation modes: passenger vehicles, large trucks, trains, and transit. More than 250 leading traffic safety experts, safety advocates, and government officials gathered to define the problem and discuss how best to address it. The summit generated broad agreement among public and private sector organizations and policymakers about the need for texting-while-driving laws. Public surveys also confirm widespread community support for texting bans.
By the end of 2009, 19 states and the District of Columbia had enacted legislation banning texting-while-driving for all drivers and a number of other states had laws covering specific types of drivers, such as novice drivers or school bus drivers. The organizations that participated in developing this sample law included Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, AAA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CTIA – The Wireless Association, Governors Highway Safety Association, ITS America, International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Safety Council, The National Traffic Law Center of the National District Attorneys Association, Safe Kids USA, and DOT.
As part of DOT’s continuing efforts to ban distracted driving and under the slogan “Phone in One Hand, Ticket in the Other,” a distracted driving demonstration that focuses on law enforcement crackdown was recently launched in Hartford, CT and Syracuse, NY. The demo includes TV, radio spots, earned media materials, and web banners. The Media Network, Inc. produced the radio spots in Spanish and translated and adapted the earned media material from English to Spanish. Focus Driven, the National Safety Council, and several other agencies and organizations also are working on raising awareness of the consequences of driving while distracted.
On Friday April 30, 2010, Oprah Winfrey and Harpo Studios took a stand against distracted driving by launching a new public service announcement campaign and joining forces with some of the country’s preeminent transportation safety organizations to declare Friday, April 30 the first national “No Phone Zone Day.”
DOT, NHTSA, Governors Highway Safety Association, National Organizations for Youth Safety, FocusDriven, Students Against Destructive Decisions and RADD, the Entertainment Industry’s Voice for Road Safety, have joined Oprah Winfrey in the national day of awareness to end distracted driving.
The nation is well on its way to putting an end to distracted driving.