Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of people are injured while thousands are killed in distracted driving auto crashes yearly. But a report from the United Kingdom may show that distracted driving activities tied to phone use are not the only issues associated with distracted driving.
The report shows that, when it comes to distracted driving, in-car technology is a serious problem.
In the United Kingdom, two million people have experiences car accidents or near-miss incidents due to the fact drivers were not alert to the road. According to Geoffrey Miller, the firm behind the research into in-car tech and how it’s impacting driver safety, advances in in-car technology have been making our lives much easier in the past decade. However, they have also made it easier for drivers to become widely distracted.
To the researchers, the fact that there isn’t a law that prohibits drivers from using in-car tech that may boost distraction while driving.
According to the report, the use of electrical devices are responsible for at least 57 percent of distracted driving cases. At least 1.4 million drivers have been forced to swerve to avoid crashes because of distracted drivers while 1.25 million have accidentally passed through a red light because of the same issue. Researchers also found that, at least in the UK, men are more likely to become distracted than women.
Whenever a driver looks away from the road for about 5 seconds while the vehicle is traveling at 30 miles per hour, he or she allows the vehicle to travel for 54 yards without paying attention to what is going on around them. If the vehicle is traveling at about 70 mph, it will travel for about 174 yards while the driver is completely oblivious of potential risks.
When distraction takes over, the driver is unable to react accordingly to avoid auto crashes. With in-car technologies that continue to increase the risk of accidents across the globe, drivers will have a much harder time avoiding accidents.
Not too long ago, an agency decided to capture footage of the road for about 20 minutes to find out how distracted drivers were. The experiment took place in Florida, and you can check the results by watching the video below.
To learn more about how in-car technology is making distracted driving a bigger problem than it already is, follow this link for the full report.
