Commentary


Safe Roads: How safe do you feel?



Recently, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that in 2009 highway deaths fell to their lowest number since 1950. Yet at the same time, 52% of drivers say they feel less safe on the roads now than they did five years ago. If cars are safer and roads are safer, why do drivers feel less safe?

The reason: distracted driving. The survey which those drivers responded to—the 2010 Traffic Safety Culture Index by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety—also showed that 88% of motorists felt a very serious safety threat from drivers who text and email. Studies of the cell phone records of drivers involved in crashes suggest that using a cell phone while driving is associated with roughly a quadrupling of crash risk. No wonder drivers don’t feel safe. No wonder drivers perceive distracted driving as a threat on the same level as alcohol-impaired driving (which was voted “very serious” by 87% of respondents).

Now here’s the really scary part. Despite considering distracted driving unacceptable, many surveyed by the AAA Foundation admitted to engaging in the behaviors themselves.

Ninety-two percent of drivers said that text messaging while driving was unacceptable. However, 24% admitted to having read or sent a text message or email while driving in the last month.

Sixty-four percent of drivers said talking on a cell phone while driving was unacceptable. Yet, in the last month, 69% admitted to using a cell phone while driving—and 34% reported doing it often!

There is a serious disconnect between awareness and real-world behavior. The “Do as I say, not as I do” attitude is prevalent throughout much of the driving public. If this attitude continues, along with increased availability of high-tech car gadgets, how safe will drivers feel five years from now?

That’s one of the reasons AAA has launched a national legislative campaign to ban texting while driving in all 50 states. It’s already law in Colorado, 30 other states and the District of Columbia. Colorado’s law against texting while driving was passed in 2009, and the state also bans those under the age of 18 from any other type of cell phone use while driving.

AAA also supports the proposed National Distracted Driving Prevention Act, including incentive grants for enactment of texting-while-driving bans, a national education program and expanded research.

Cell phone use and texting are just one type of distracted driving. In addition to cell phones, GPS and in-car entertainment, drivers today are still distracted by many of the same things that distracted their grandparents—passengers, things outside or inside the vehicle, eating, drinking, smoking, reading maps … the list is endless.

Experts estimate that drivers are doing something potentially distracting (mentally, physically or both) more than 15% of the time their vehicles are in motion. When a driver’s eyes are off the road for more than two seconds, for any reason, the odds of a crash occurring are nearly double those of a driver paying attention to the road.

AAA will continue working to build a social climate in which traffic safety is highly valued and rigorously pursued. Given the preventable nature of the majority of traffic deaths, AAA implores drivers to stay off the phone, buckle up, don’t drink and drive, obey the speed limit and arrive alive.

Some additional AAA traffic safety resources

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