A filthy, crowded highway filled with so many cars it becomes a death trap. A high pitched noise rings out over the honking horns and disgruntled snickers. “New message” the screen flashes in colors and pictures that could make a blind person stop and stare. A tempted driver reaches over to sneak a “quick” peak at their box of hindrance. The driver continues to glare at their screen for a measly five seconds. Without knowing it they have already traveled the distance of a football field by going at a constant speed of fifty-five miles per hour (“Featured Video: Stairs”). As they continue down the road their chances of a fatal accident are increased by twenty- three percent (“Texting and Driving Safety, No Texting and Driving”). Distracted driving is impacting more than just young and foolish drivers. By understanding who it is affecting and why it is affecting them we can move forward in a solution to this issue. “Distracted driving is any activity that could divert a person's attention away from the primary task of driving” (“Distracted Driving | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration | Texting and Driving”). Distracted driving can occur in three main types: manual, visual and cognitive. Manual distraction is when you take your hands off of the wheel, visual distraction is when you take your eyes off of the road, and cognitive distraction is when you take your mind (focus) off of the road (“Distracted Driving | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration”).
“ Distracted driving kills” ( Distracted driving7). Distracted driving affects people of all ages but, “ our youngest and most inexperienced drivers are most at risk” ( Distracted driving7). This happens as soon as a person enters their vehicle and start to drive. Their eyes begin to go off the road which soon causes a head to head collision. Later on as technology improves and advances, cell phones have become the most common type of distracted driving such as eating or drinking or watching videos on their phone for an example, “ because text messaging requires visual, manual and conductive attention from the driver, it is by far the most alarm distraction” (Distracted driving 5). This shows that many are risking their life and others around
Texting and driving should be illegal in all fifty states because of the catastrophic affects it has had on our country. It has become just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than drunk driving. It kills thousands of people and injures hundreds of thousands annually. Whether people think they can shoot a text safely or they just aren’t aware of the dangers, it needs to come to a complete stop. To do this, laws need to be in place for any and all kinds of cellphone usage; adults, teenagers, elders, and bus drivers should be banned from picking up their phone while operating a vehicle. Consequences should also be in place for those who do not abide by them. No text is worth your life or anyone else’s.
Distracted driving is when somebody is doing another activity that takes away their attention from driving. Big distractions are cell phones. Cell phones have certain uses like texting and calling that easily distract drivers. Distractions consist of the following three types: cognitive, manual, and visual. Cognitive distractions take your mind off of driving. Manual distractions take your hands off of the steering wheel. Visual distractions take your eyes off of the road. Texting while driving is especially dangerous because it falls into all three of these categories. You need to think about texting, you need to touch your phone and you need to look at your phone to text. Distracted driving makes the chances of getting
The state of Colorado is NOT doing enough to prevent distracted driving, especially among tech-savvy millennials who ignore safety precautions set by the government in order to reduce the amount of accidents each year from careless drivers. Despite road signs and an increased cost on distracted driving tickets - it is still technically legal to text and drive in the state of Colorado. In July of 2017, the government decided that using handheld devices while driving is considered safe unless the driver is being careless or reckless. What government officials refuse to acknowledge is that it takes a fraction of a second to permanently ruin your life or someone else’s. Studies have shown that distracted driving delays the body's ability to reach to urgent situations by an average of 6 seconds. Comparatively, the timing of these reactions are very similar to those results of people who consume alcohol/drugs prior to getting in the car and driving. As for the consequences, a ticket is $300 but the guilt lasts a lifetime and those who drive recklessly and take the life of another person never get over their foolish decision to prioritize a phone over their own safety. It’s important to educate the youth and future generations of the dangers distracted driving can lead to - as well as explain the effects if they are not careful.
According to the article “Distracted Driving: Stay Focused On The Road” the definition of distracted driving is the “practice of driving a motor vehicle while engaged in another activity, typically one that involves the use of a mobile phone or other electronic device.’’ Many people think that distracted driving is just looking down at your phone but this article shows that there are actually 3 types and they each can be dangerous. The first type of Distracted Driving is visual distractions. This is something outside the vehicle that causes you to take your eyes off the road. The second type is manual distractions. This is something that is inside your vehicle that causes you to take your hands off the wheel. The last type is
Each one of us is surrounded by many different distractions each day, hour, minute, and even every second. These distractions become an issue when they affect the safety of other people, which can especially happen while driving. Distracted driving is a major problem today, mostly because of cell phones, but there are many other activities or objects that can be distracting to a driver, impacting themselves and other drivers on the road. Distracted driving causes many deaths and injuries each year, and could easily be avoided if drivers took more responsibility for their actions while driving, avoiding any distractions that take their attention away from driving, which threatens the safety of other drivers.
In 2014, 2,179 people were killed, and 431,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers. This trend is being continued by the younger and newer generation, as distracted driving has been a big temptation for teens. Eighty-six percent of the eighty-two percent of American teens who own cell phones have admitted to either being on a call or responding to a text while driving. It’s even more alarming that as of 2014, seventy-seven percent claim that they are confident that they can handle distractions while driving. Distracted driving is pretty explanatory; the process of being distracted while driving any motorized vehicle. Anyone can be part of a distracted driving incident; it can be the driver, the passengers in the vehicle and even other people in surrounding vehicles. There are a few ways to make sure drivers would be able to drive and give their complete attention to the road, such as educating the public, and restricting the inattentiveness of the driver. However, it is necessary for the states to enforce laws that reduce distracted driving because frequent multitasking can have a negative effect on the brain’s ability to focus, and distracted driving puts the safety of the driver and the people around them at risk.
Distracted driving occurs when car drivers lose their attention and focus from the road by eating, texting, talking on the phone, doing their makeup, etc. This can be very easy to do in the busy world that we live in today. When a driver’s attention is taken from the road, they can easily get in an accident or cause others to get in serious accidents. These accidents often lead to injury or death. However, even if everyone survives or remains unharmed, it can cause a significant financial burden for car and road repairs. If this continues, the
There has been a rising concern in the last few years about the potential dangers accompanying texting while driving associated largely with the increasing number of highway fatalities. Significant efforts have been made by The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) for curtailing distracted driving including texting while driving along with public service information and announcements. As per NHTSA, driving distractions are of three different forms like manual, visual and cognitive. Manual driving distractions take off the driver’s hands off from the steering wheel (Kirszner & Mandell, 2010).
The topic of texting while driving has been thrown around for years and years. It all started when “smartphone” sales started increasing. However, the choice of texting while driving is not smart. Ever since phones became a priority in the world, many people can’t let go of them. This includes drivers, but what if they knew how deadly it was to remove your eyes from the road.
A word has started to appear in discussions of driving. The word is "distracted." It refers to drivers who pay more attention to their cell phones, or their text messages, than they do to driving. The results can be fatal. One of the most common distractions today is texting. Each day in the United States, 9 people are killed and more than 1,060 people are injured in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver (Center). A couple of months ago, I and a friend were sitting at a red light waiting on green. We were talking about making plans for later that evening. We decided what to do as soon as the light turned green, we waited on the car in front of us to ease off the line. Then we were hit. This turned into a five car pileup.
Cell phones have such a huge impact on many individuals and it is their everyday essential tool. For some reason, people can’t resist the urge to not be on their phones, and this is why it leads many individuals to text while they’re driving. A person can pretty much do anything on their cell phone and they can also communicate through various ways, such as communicating by text, voice text, and video. Many individuals may find it hard to stop texting while driving because it’s an addiction to them. A person’s brain is already immune to when they hear that incoming text sound they automatically have to reply. Cell phones have become incredibly advanced and this has led the number of deaths to increase due to texting while driving. It can also
Driving distractions can generally be categorized as either manual, visual or cognitive distractions. Manual distractions take a driver’s hands off of the wheel, while visual distractions are those that take their eyes off of the road. Cognitive, or mental distractions, on the other hand, are those that take a motorist’s attention off of the primary task of driving.
I am in firm belief that prohibiting the use of cell phone (or any texting devices) while driving would be make the drivers and streets safer and or more aware. There are numerous reasons why texting and driving should be prohibited. For starters, human beings have a limited processing capacity. Processing capacity could be seen as a tank, while the water that fills the tank can be seen as tasks. Now how much water that is poured into this processing capacity tank are determined by whether they are high or low loaded tasks. A low loaded task would leave the tank with plenty of available room for other tasks while high loaded task would fill the majority of the tank up. Driving a car would be defined as a high loaded task, due to that driving a car takes a lot of cognitive processing. Including, at minimal both covert and overt attention combined with feature searching, visual searching, visual scanning is involved in the basic task load of driving a car. Figure in the low load task of texting into the filling of the processing capacity tank, the tank begins to overflow. What this means that something from the high loaded task must give up to make room, such as overt attention. When an individual is driving
Distracted driving happens when a person is operating a vehicle and partakes in a different activity that divides his/her attention. This usually happens when someone is using an electronic related device. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and other agencies there are three specific subtypes of distracted driving: visual, manual, and cognitive. (Distracted Driving, 1). Visual distractions occur when a driver takes his or her eyes off the road. Manual distractions occur when a driver takes his or her hands off the steering wheel, and cognitive distractions occur when a driver’s focus and/or attention are divided between driving and other tasks. (Distracted Driving, 1) Texting and driving ensues all 3 of these distractions. First, visually when you first receive the incoming message and your phone lights up, causing you to take your eyes off the road and look to see who it’s from. Then, manual the act of picking up your phone to respond, moving your hands off the wheel to partake in a different