Archive for April, 2012

Driven to Distraction

Sunday, April 8th, 2012

Many drivers have either witnessed or heard of people reading a book, doing their makeup and worse still, eating their breakfast cereal out of a bowl balanced on a steering wheel while driving, these are obvious and dangerous activities but they’re many more subtle distractions that lots of drivers do not consider impedes their ability to drive in a safe and controlled manner.

Most drivers like to think that they can multi task whilst driving but any activity that’s dissipates a drivers concentration is a danger to themselves, their passengers and other road users. In the majority of incidents drivers only have a few seconds to react to avoid a collision,  taking your eyes of the road to adjust  the radio station or looking out of the vehicle’s side window at something that has caught your eye may only take a few seconds but those seconds are precious when confronted by a car that’s jumped the lights or a child who runs out from behind a parked car in front of your vehicle.  It is a terrible burden to live with the knowledge that you caused the death of a child because you gazed at a dress or suit in a shop window instead of fully concentrating on your driving.

How many times have you driven home from work or a well-travelled route and can’t remember anything about the journey?.  Was it because there was nothing memorable about your journey, or was it that you were whiling the time away by talking on the phone or mentally making a shopping list or thinking about your forthcoming holiday. Countless drivers have experienced the phenomenon of not remembering their journey and sadly for some they paid the ultimate price for this lack of concentration.

Lots of cyclists and motorcyclists have experienced or heard the well-used phrase, I didn’t see you coming, for many drivers this is because they failed to look and look again before proceeding possibly because they were distracted or they were just not paying sufficient attention which is necessary to drive safely.

Please look at the enclosed graphic kindly supplied to Roaddriver by Bolt insurance, it lists the main reasons and activities for driver distractions.