For drivers who multitask in the car, it is important to understand how distracting common behaviors are so you can be aware of whether your actions are putting yourself or other motorists at risk of an accident. Any time your focus is shifted from the road, you increase the chances of a collision. However, some tasks that drivers do cause a much greater shift in focus than others and are thus more dangerous.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety recently observed motorists doing six of the most common tasks that drivers do behind the wheel. According to MSN Money's report on the AAA study, the motorists were observed doing the tasks when they weren’t driving; when they were on a simulated driving course; and when they drove on the roads in a real setting. The purpose was to see how distracting, and thus how dangerous, each of the behaviors were.

Distracted Driving Risk Levels

An experienced car accident attorney in Boston knows such distractions are a primary cause of motor vehicle collisions. The AAA study involved taking measures of the brain activity and of the head and eye movement of the study participants. The study also took a close look at braking behavior and following distance for the participants while driving. The data was then used to assess how risky different behaviors are in the car. According to the study:

• There is a mild risk associated with listening to the radio or with listening to an audio book. Both of these behaviors can be slightly distracting but are not described as being cause for concern.
• There is a moderate risk associated with talking to a passenger in the car. To make sure that the distraction was actually occurring because of the conversation and not because the driver was making hand gestures or looking at the passenger, both of these behaviors were forbidden and the driver was made to keep his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. Even with these precautions in place, which a lot of drivers in the real-world wouldn’t take, talking to a passenger was found to be a moderate distraction.
• There is a moderate distraction associated with the use of a cell phone to talk while in the car. The study looked at both talking on a hands-free phone and talking on a handheld phone. Despite a widespread misconception that hands-free phones are safer, both behaviors were found to be about equally distracting and to be moderately risky.
• It is an extreme distraction to use a text-to-speech program to email or text. This behavior was considered to be very dangerous for drivers. Drivers, when focused on their text or email, experience inattention blindness and could miss seeing an obstacle or a hazard on the road right in front of them.

The data, therefore, shows that drivers who care about safety should never text or email and drive, even when using a speech program.  Drivers should also avoid cell phone use entirely and should be sure to remain focused on the road as a first priority even when talking to passengers.

Call 1-800-WIN-WIN-1 for a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer at the Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone in Boston.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has worked carefully to create a strategic plan and to publish new guidelines to improve driver safety among seniors. The agency’s new guidelines and plan address an issue that is likely to become a growing concern in the United States: the aging of the driving population.

An experienced car accident attorney in Boston knows that senior drivers tend to have a high rate of accidents and, other than teenagers, are most likely to become involved in collisions. The issues leading to accidents caused by seniors are different than the public-health problems plaguing other drivers, like increased cell phone use. Instead, the reasons seniors tend to have more crashes are age-related and include slower reaction times and physical and cognitive impairments that often occur with age. The NHTSA needs to deal proactively with the risks presented by seniors, and its new plan and guidelines are a good start.

NHTSA’s Guidelines and Traffic Safety Plan

One of the cornerstones of the NHTSA’s efforts to deal with aging drivers is the publication of the first-ever Older Driver Highway Safety Program Guidelines. States are encouraged to review the guidelines and to work from the suggestions within them to identify and help at-risk senior drivers before accidents happen. The guidelines were developed by the NHTSA after the agency reviewed best practices from around the United States.  The guidelines encourage collaboration at the state level among senior service providers, doctors, drivers’ license officials and state departments of transportation.

The NHTSA also has plans to make vehicles safer for seniors. These plans include researching new crash avoidance technologies as well as a vehicle-to-vehicle communication system. The technologies being researched will help all drivers, but especially seniors since the technologies target the issues that seniors are most likely to experience behind the wheel.

Because it isn’t enough to just make some cars safer, the NHTSA is also going to be considering the features that cars can offer seniors and will be grading the vehicles on that as part of a new “Silver” rating system. Seniors can look at the silver rating and see if the car is well-designed for someone with their age bracket.

Finally, the NHTSA is going to try to better understand and shape driver behavior. The increased understanding of motorists could come from improved data collection systems, which will be more equipped to record information such as cognitive, physical and perceptual changes that are associated with the behavior of senior drivers.

Ultimately, individuals and families are the ones who best know how a senior is behaving and what cognitive or physical limitations have developed. However, the NHTSA guidelines and best-practice suggestions mean that even seniors who don’t have family members who step in may be identified as at-risk and thus could avoid a car accident caused by their dangerous driving actions.  Everyone benefits when seniors stay off the roads if they cannot drive safely, and the NHTSA efforts will hopefully help avoid accidents by providing more insight into how senior drivers should be evaluated.

If you’ve been hurt, call 1-800-WIN-WIN-1 for a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer at the Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone.