Well, all of us do it. We try and save some time, when we are running late, putting on makeup, eating a breakfast and digging for the sunglasses, while at the wheel. And when there is companion in car, things with distraction can get even worse. Even statistics stating so many car crashes every year due to distraction and the fact that multitasking while driving leads to three times more likely to be involved in a car accident, even this doesn’t help and stop people doing so many distracting things while driving.
Of course, distraction and driving are always a matter of personality and how different people can or cannot stay focused on the road, however multitasking while driving is not the best idea. We at Mobeo definitely recommend to forget using your phone while driving, when it is not imperative, because drivers distracted by their phones are 4 times more likely to be involved in a car crash. And our main responsibility as drivers is to stay focused and do everything possible to prevent accidents.
Many of us feel really confident while at the wheel and for many of us driving is like a second nature. Then, why is multitasking while driving really that dangerous? Let’s have a look at the statistics provided by Brake - the UK’s road safety charity. According to the statistics provided, one of every five crashes is caused by driver distraction and negligence and this means that every time you decide to put on some lipstick while driving, or check the social media you put yourself at risk of being one of these 22% car accidents. And this has nothing to do with how confident and knowledgeable you are at the wheel and how much driving experience you have, because even the most confident drivers shows a significant amount of distraction, when performing a secondary task while driving.
So, which are the main distractions that can put you at risk? Having a look at the statistics and reports from Brake we can see that 62% of drivers are eating at the wheel and this is the biggest cause of driver distraction. And even worse, 29% of the drivers admit that they unwrap their food while they are driving. 20% of the drivers from the same survey admit they do their makeup and hair while driving and 5% of them are admitting that they do so while in moving traffic!
When it comes to using your phone while driving you have to keep in mind that chatting on the phone reduces the driver’s reactions with 50% and even with a hands-free device there is still 30% reduction of the driver’s reactions. Otherwise said, driving while using the hands-free device and chatting has even a bigger impact on your driver’s reactions than driving with a blood-alcohol level 80mg per 100ml of blood, which is the current legal limit in UK.
However, neither phone chatting, nor eating your breakfast at the wheel is not that distracting like number one reason to not keep your eyes from the road – children on the back seat. It turns out that every time we turn around to take a look at the kids on the back seat just for a second, we are putting us and them into 12 times higher risk of a car accident than talking on the phone does! So, next time you get behind the wheel make sure that you get rid of all the distracting factors and don’t pay attention to them.