Distracted Driving Just as Bad As Drunk Driving According to Study
Advice given is much easier than advice taken – especially when it comes to texting and driving. In a new AAA survey, approximately 90% of people equate the dangers of drunk driving with the dangers of texting and driving. Unfortunately 21% of respondents admitted to having done what they had just declared as dangerous as drunk driving in the past month.
Another disturbing statistic was that 58% of respondents determined that talking on the phone while driving is a “very serious threat to their safety,” and yet 55% of respondents admitted to talking on the phone while driving in the past month. The discrepancies between the percent of people who think doing something that puts them in grave danger and the percent of people doing those things can be attributed to many things. For one, there is no national law against texting or e-mailing while driving. Second, there is a certain stigma surrounding drunk driving that isn’t present around texting/e-mailing and driving or talking on your cell phone and driving.
People might admit on paper, when they have time to think about the repercussions that stem from not being able to watch the road while driving, that it’s dangerous to use a cell phone. But in the moment, while driving, for whatever reason people tend to forget about those repercussions and proceed to do what they had previously declared as a very serious threat to their safety. If there is anything to be learned from these findings, in order to keep the road safe, perhaps people should start equating texting while driving with drunk driving. (Via MSN)
