Subscribe
Being distracted on the road doesn’t only put you at risk, it puts everyone around you as well. While looking at your phone your eyes are off the road for an average of five seconds. Statistics show that texting while driving is equally as dangerous as driving intoxicated.
Anything that takes the driver’s attention away from the road such as texting, eating and reading is considered distracted driving. Crashes due to distracted driving are on the rise.
“We try to remind people that they are not invincible,” said Oscar Duran, a firefighter medic for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue in Florida. “Crashes happen every day. Every ten to twelve minutes someone dies in a vehicle crash, but everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, that it’ll happen to someone else.”
Injuries can range from a concussion to collapsed lungs, broken ribs and even paralysis. The chances of severe injury and even death increase if the driver isn’t wearing a seatbelt. If a car rolls over and the seatbelt isn’t secured the driver can get launched out of the vehicle and once out of the vehicle, their chance of death is 24 times more likely.
“A common cause of crashes is distracted driving especially on a base, there’s slower traffic, so people take things out that distract them and people take their eyes and minds off the road,” said Miles Bowman, Marine Corps Installation East traffic safety supervisor. “We have anywhere from 80 to 100 accidents each month attributed to distracted driving.”
“We had a mother pushing a stroller in a crosswalk who was struck,” said Bowman. “It always shocks me. It’s so obvious they are there; if the person just paid attention, there’s no way they would have struck them. It’s the needless crashes that always bother me the most.”
Car crashes used to tend to involve two vehicles, but with distracted driving being so common, crashes now involve three or four other cars. This is due to the slow reaction of those who are distracted while driving.
“Program your GPS before you drive, get your radio stations tuned, put your phone somewhere you can’t reach it, make sure your child is in a spot where you’re not going to be distracted, minimize all the things that could distract you while you’re on the road,” said Bowman. “If you ever have something that needs your attention other than the roadway, pull over, take a couple of minutes to take care of it and get back on the road.”
| Date Taken: | 05.25.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 06.06.2017 14:43 |
| Story ID: | 235213 |
| Location: | NC, US |
| Web Views: | 23 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, The drive to stay safe, by Sgt Juan Madrigal, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
LEAVE A COMMENT