Distracted Driving Awareness
What Is Distracted Driving?
There are three main types of distraction:
- Visual — taking your eyes off the road
- Manual — taking you hands of the wheel
- Cognitive — taking your mind off what you’re doing
Distracted driving is any non-driving activity a person engages in that has the potential to distract him or her from the primary task of driving and increase the risk of crashing.
While all distractions can endanger drivers’ safety, texting is the most alarming because it involves all three types of distraction.
Other distracting activities include:
- Using a cell phone
- Eating and drinking
- Talking to passengers
- Grooming
- Reading, including maps
- Using a PDA or navigation system
- Watching a video
- Changing the radio station, CD, or Mp3 player.
Did You Know?
Research on distracted driving reveals some surprising facts:
- Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent. (Source: Carnegie Mellon)
- Nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted driver, and more than half a million were injured. (NHTSA)
- The younger, inexperienced drivers under 20 years old have the highest proportion of distraction-related fatal crashes.
- Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
- Using a cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah)
Resources
Here are some resources to help you with addressing the problem of distracted driving in your community:
- Distraction.gov — The official US Government web site for distracted driving. This site has stats and facts, campaign artwork, templates, and many other resources for starting your own awareness or enforcement campaign.
- DRIVE SMART® Virginia — DSV is the coordinating organization behind Virginia's Distracted Driving Awareness Day (annually in late April). Become a safety partner or sign the pledge to not drive distracted.
- FocusDriven.org — Advocates for cell-free driving.
FocusDriven believes that the science and research behind cell phone distracted driving dictates that ALL cellular communication use in a moving vehicle has the potential for deadly consequences.
New Distracted Driving Resources
Virginia DMV would like to share NEW distracted driving resources provided by NHTSA from Ad Council and Project Yellow Light to deter distracted driving and encourage safe driving behaviors.
Recently, Ad Council and Project Yellow announced the winners of their 12th annual Project Yellow Light scholarship competition. This was a unique opportunity in which students created TV, radio and billboard PSAs to educate their peers about the dangers of using your phone while driving. One of the six winners announced is from Virginia!
DND (radio, college): Kambria Cook (North Chesterfield, VA)
Please find links to download the 2023 Project Yellow Light competition winner submissions below:
Billboard Graphics
Radio
TV
If you have questions, please feel free to reach out. Thank you in advance for your efforts in the fight to end distracted driving and save lives.
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