(Newswire.net — June 6, 2019) — How many times have you heard the warnings: don’t text and drive; don’t call and drive. And still you probably do it. Why?
Unfortunately, statistics show the following:
- In 2018, 4,637 people lost their lives on American roadways due to cell phone usage while driving.
- In 2017, cell phone usage while driving resulted in 1.5 million U.S. car crashes.
- Cell Phone usage while driving causes 14% of all fatal U.S. crashes.
- At any given moment of any given day, 7% of drivers are using their cellphones.
- Texting while driving causes you to become distracted for about five seconds. If you’re going 55 miles per hour, your car will travel the length of a football field during this time.
- When you use your cellphone while driving, your reaction times decrease the same as if you had a blood alcohol content of 0.08%, the legal maximum in virtually all states.
Is Hands-Free Cell Phone Usage Okay?
No, it’s not. If you believe that installing hands-free technology in your car or truck allows you to safely use your cellphone while driving, your erroneous belief could get you killed. Why? Because it’s the activity itself that’s dangerous, regardless of whether or not you hold your phone while engaging in it.
The National Safety Council blows the hands-free is risk-free myth to smithereens with the following study results:
- When you use your cell phone hands-free while driving, your brain’s capacity to see and process the motion around you decreases by 33%.
- When you use your cell phone hands-free while driving, your brain’s capacity to see and process stationary objects around you decreases by 50%.
- Hands-free cell phone usage while driving actually represents a greater danger to you, your passengers, and the other drivers and passengers around you than hand-held cellphone usage.
What Is Distracted Driving?
Distracted driving involves many things other than cell phone usage. In fact, it’s anything that takes your hands off the steering wheel, your eyes off the road, and/or your mind off your driving itself. For additional tips on how you can stop distracted driving, click here.
Is Immediate Gratification Worth It?
If you’re like most people, you live on social media. In fact, one might say you’re addicted to it. This is the primary way, if not the only way, you keep up with what your friends and family are doing and let them know what you’re doing. And you want that information right now.
But think about it. Is it really that important that you engage in immediate social media gratification while driving? Finding out who went to lunch where or who just read an enlightening online article is not an emergency. It’s not a matter of life and death. Your driving, on the other hand, is. Literally.
The best way you can stop the slaughter on America’s roadways is to take the pledge to put your #phonedown while driving. And then keep that pledge as though your life depended on it. It does. So do the lives of your passengers and everyone in the cars around you. It takes such little effort and you have so much to gain.