April is nationally recognized as Distracted Driving Awareness Month in order to remind drivers that doing other tasks while behind the wheel can be extremely dangerous to everyone.
According to officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the most dangerous distraction when a person is behind the wheel is texting, because it takes away from the three senses, visual, manual, and cognitive, that a person needs while driving.
Data shows that a crash is 23 percent more likely to occur if a person is driving while distracted. Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55 mph, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded.
Other activities that law enforcement considers distracted driving are reading, including maps, watching videos, eating, talking to passengers, using a cell or smart phone, grooming, or adjusting a radio, CD player, or MP3 player.
Some might think that talking on a cell phone is no different from talking to a passenger but passenger conversations differ from cell phone conversations because the surrounding traffic becomes a topic of the conversation, helping driver and passenger to share situation awareness, and mitigating the potential effects of conversation on driving.
If you or a loved one has been injured after being involved in an accident with a negligent driver, contact the Kansas City reckless driving accident lawyers of The Pottenger Law Firm LLC by calling 816-531-6006.
