Distracted Driving
Dear Editor: A few weeks ago I heard a story of a youngster in Sitka who biked into traffic and almost got hit. Fortunately, the motorists who shared this with me was paying attention and slammed on the brakes. When I asked him what would have happened if he was talking on the phone and not paying careful attention he said he would have hit him.
Everyday people in town talk on the phones while driving. A survey of Sitka motorists this year showed that 21 percent of Sitka’s drivers had one hand on the wheel and one hand on something else, usually a cell phone. This simple observation survey couldn’t measure for daydreaming or other factors that distract drivers from the task at hand, but out of the 265 drivers observed this February, 57 of them were clearly multi-tasking. The driver who took the cake was the one who was kind of driving while simultaneously opening a stubbornly wrapped package.
Distracted driving happens a lot, but so what? Aren’t these multi tasking drivers usually making it to their destination without having problems? Many times they do, but not always.
According to the Centers for Disease Control each day in the U.S., more than nine people are killed and more than 1,153 people are injured in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver. In 2012, 3,328 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver and another 421,000 people were injured. Distracted driving has caused and will cause major problems on our roads.
Some might question if handheld devices are really the issue. Maybe they are just poor drivers?
A recent study from Virginia Tech is one of many that shows distracted driving is a tangible threat that increased the risk of getting into a crash. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety drivers who use hand- held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes.
Our brains are not designed to do two things at once and both research and experience confirms that there is no such thing as a good “multi-tasker”. People may perceive that they are doing fine, but simulator results paint a very different picture. A Carnegie-Mellon University research project showed that drivers who were just listening to sentences experience a 37 percent reduction in brain activity associated with driving. Distracted driving is inherently risky because when the brain gets overloaded it overlooks important information. Drivers don’t overlook things consciously or on purpose, it just happens as our brains bounce back and forth between tasks.
The consequences of distracted driving are especially dangerous to walkers and bicyclists. According to a recent study from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. From 2005 to 2010, the national number of pedestrians struck and killed by distracted drivers went up from 344 to 500 – an almost 50 percent increase. For cyclists, the numbers killed went from 56 to 73 – a 30 percent increase. If you want Sitka to be a bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly community than please drive phone free.
After 10 months of research and thought on this topic my conclusions are that: distracted driving happens every day in Sitka, it increases the risk of getting into a crash, it directly contributes to injuries and multi tasking is a myth because our brains are not wired to do two things at the same time.
Finally, I’d like to sincerely thank all the motorists who are driving phone free and keeping Sitka public streets safe for everyone.
Doug Osborne, Sitka
