• 21
  • February
    2012

The same mobile technologies that transfix and provide ready entertainment to people in homes, shopping malls, at schools and a number of other places take on a potentially deadly twist when used by a driver in a moving vehicle.

Much of the American public knows all about that, having been saturated within the past couple years by media, educational and law enforcement campaigns and initiatives focused on distractions and the increasingly deadly role they are playing in car accidents. Whether in North Carolina or elsewhere, drivers who seem focused on something other than the road are causing serious and fatal accidents in high numbers.

The relevant statistics are reported widely and by diverse sources. Drivers are about 23 times more likely to crash when they are texting. About 3,000 fatalities that occurred on American roadways last year were the direct result of a distracted motorist.

Truly, what to do about that? An interesting enigma that is emerging is the realization among safety experts and transportation officials that simply curbing -- strongly limiting -- cell phone use has not brought the noticeably positive results envisioned.

In other words, crash rates are not being materially reduced by stringent limitations on talking and texting.

Why not?

"That's the conundrum that researchers are trying to untangle," says Russ Rader, a spokesperson for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Rader states that distracted driving has always existed and involves factors far in excess of some drivers' simple infatuation with mobile phones. Think kids, CD changers, balancing a burger while steering, pets, daydreaming, shaving, applying makeup and a thousand other things.

"It's a matter of personal responsibility," says one police official, who states that motorists just have to focus on driving with as few distractions as possible, whatever they might be.

Source: San Antonio Express, "Distracted driving gets attention" Michelle Koidin Jaffee, Feb. 13, 2012