A day ago, I was writing about the dangers of using a cell phone while driving. This is so serious it has now been designated “high risk behavior” by the National Safety Council and is considered as dangerous as driving drunk. Once you see all the research laid out in front of you, you can’t escape the conclusion that talking on the phone while driving is a very risky business.

While the conversation is a distraction, so is the actual act of pulling it out of purse or pocket, dialing, looking at the screen – pursuits that take our eyes and attention from our driving. In other words you have to give it your attention, and that is the distraction that can cause accidents.  A TIME magazine article details the results of a Virginia Tech study of truck driver distractions and concludes it doesn’t take much time for a distraction to turn into a disaster.

Cell phones pose a more serious distraction when people are texting on their phones while driving. Texting means typing and typing means looking at a keyboard. That means the driver is distracted, not looking out for pedestrians, other vehicles or obstacles.

A law that went into effect January 1 in California makes it illegal to send text messages while driving.

On a federal level, in July, four U.S. senators pushed for a bill to ban texting while driving, a day after a study found that drivers who text while on the road are much more likely to have an accident than undistracted drivers.

Senators Chuck Schumer, D-New York; Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey; Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana; and Kay Hagan, D-North Carolina, unveiled the ALERT Act, which would ban truck and car drivers and operators of mass transit from texting while driving.

The legislation they proposed would prohibit any driver from sending text or e-mail messages while driving a vehicle, said a news release from the senators.

If the bill passes, the Department of Transportation will be asked to set the minimum standards for compliance.

Texting while driving seems to be the ultimate distraction, and a no-brainer that it should be outlawed.

In addition to cell phones and texting, there are other things that can distract a driver.

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and  Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study, the principal action that causes distracted driving and leads to vehicle crashes is cell phone use, followed by:

• reaching for a moving object inside the vehicle
• looking at an object or event outside of the vehicle
• reading
• applying makeup.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles says that distractions come in three flavors: visual (eyes off the road), cognitive (mind off the road), and manual (hands off the steering wheel).
In a recent scanning of headlines, we noted that:

• A motorcyclist was struck and killed in May 2009 by a automobile driver who admitted she was painting her fingernails at the time of the crash.
• In June, a 55-year-old man struck and killed a boy scout leader and one of three scouts in the car. The distraction in that case was a dog who jumped into the driver’s lap while he was driving his motor home near Verona, Wisconsin.
• On March 16, 2009, an Evansville Indiana mother of six and grandmother of four was killed after a driver of the car behind her reached for a tissue to kill a spider and read-ended her vehicle. She died in the hospital shortly thereafter.
• Swatting at a bee, shushing kids in the back seat, checking a map, opening a bag of chips or tightening the lid on a latte—all are innocent activities that can turn lethal if they take the driver’s attention away from the road.
  
  Drive safe.

Attorney Charles J. Hausmann
August 27, 2009