Vehicles are no longer a means of transportation, they have become entertainment centers and offices for many commuters. The in-car technology is providing drivers with more and more options and with those “options” come a great deal of distraction. A recent article regarding an internet radio option is just one other example of choices available to select the music we want to listen to while driving. “Listening to music” isn’t the issue, as parents of novice drivers tend to think, it is the “selection of music” whether it is satellite radio vs. AM/FM radio, choosing apps or playlists from a portable device or apps that will be available in your vehicle, all of these cause a driver to take their attention away from the road. GPS systems, Phone systems, DVD players, you name it, every conceivable technology toy is now being made available in our vehicles and these new devices will continue to wreak havoc on our roadways as more and more people take their attention off of driving. Consider this, when you are traveling 60 mph and you look away for a single second, you travel 88 feet blind. Typically, if you are making music choices it takes more than a second. So if you’re driving you could feasibly be traveling a football field with little to no attention to what is going on in front of you. Driving defensively requires our full attention. Our ability to avoid a situation has everything to do with our ability to see a potential hazard, know what we will do to avoid it and react if necessary. All of this occurs within a matter of moments. If our mind is busy with “choices for music or making phone calls, writing text messages” or whatever the distraction might be, we won’t see the hazard and we certainly won’t react in time.
Distracted Driving Is Caused by More Than Cell Phones
Maria Wojtczak is Chief Operating Officer at DrivingMBA. She has extensive knowledge in teen brain development and has pioneered many techniques used to teach students at DrivingMBA. Her passion for teaching and saving teen lives has made her a leader in the driver training industry.
There are more distractions in our vehicles than ever before. In regards to music many cars now have control buttons on the steering wheel which enables the driver to change the music without looking away from the road.