In most cases, distracted driving is a choice. We chose as drivers to look for something in our purse, to answer our phones, to read a billboard.
Just don’t.
Distracted driving accounted for 26 per cent of fatality related accidents in 2013.
Driver distraction has accounted for the most in property damage and the most in causing personal injury in 2013, even more so than driving while impaired.
In Saskatchewan in 2013, there were 139 fatalities on Saskatchewan highways, streets and roads. Thirty of them were because of distracted driving.
What bothers me most about these fatalities is they could have been prevented.
Now I know I don’t know the story and I know there could have been other factors involved but there is always that chance, if distracted driving was not a factor, what would have happened differently?
How many times have you done something while driving and knew it was dangerous?
If someone was involved in a collison or accident with a fatality involved, how often to people think, ‘I shouldn’t be doing this’ right before getting involved in a crash?
Listen to that voice. If you are alone in your car, whatever you need to look for or grab from your backseat can wait. If it can’t pull over. You want to read the brightly lite billboard with 6 lines of text on it at 3 am, don’t. If you have passengers, let them read it to you.
Winter has come and this message is even more important now with icy roads and blowing snow. You don’t know what is going to happen to the driver in front of you or even the one behind you for that matter.
This time of year is especially not the time to be rumaging through your backseat.
This is not just putting your life at risk when you are driving destracted.
You are putting the life of your passengers and other drivers at risk by driving destracted.
Don’t pick up your phone, don’t read the billboard, just don’t chose to be distracted.
