If you keep up with our blogs, then you know fully well that we continually try to deter people from driving while distracted. Not only does it put you in harms way, but it puts everyone else on the road at risk as well. The main source for driving while distracted is the little source of communication and knowledge that we have on us at all times throughout the course of the day- the cell phone. And we’re not even referring to talking on the cell phone as the worst offense- it’s texting while driving is what is the most dangerous.
Think about it. The average text takes roughly four seconds to type and send. If you’re traveling along on the highway at 65mph, then those four seconds that your eyes are off the road can equate to roughly a football field in length on the road. Would you feel safe riding with someone who closed their eyes for 100 yards while driving? No, I wouldn’t either.
Unfortunately, a new study reveals that there are a frequent amount of Connecticut drivers who don’t heed our warnings and continue to text and drive. Now, we all should know as Connecticut drivers that it is illegal to use a hand-held device while driving the car. In fact, this study revealed that eighty-nine percent of the drivers surveyed knew this was the law. However only twenty percent of them considered stopping. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t make much sense to me.
Aside from the texting while driving, there were other forms of distraction that were included in the survey, and those statistics aren’t great either. Roughly ninety percent of driver surveyed admitted to multiple changes of the radio, eighty percent said they eat and/or drink while behind the wheel, and approximately seventy-five percent admitted to reaching over either to the passenger seat or in the back seat to grab something- all while on the road.
Now, these statistics aren’t doing anyone any favors, especially in the Connecticut auto insurance department. We don’t have to spell out for you what that means. But what you can do to help is simply what you can stop doing, and that’s driving while distracted.