The Dangers Of Being Distracted When Driving

Wednesday, 12. August 2009

When I first started driving the most technical pieces of equipment in my car were the window winders and the optional heater, that was either on or off. Radios were not standard equipment and cassette players were somewhat futuristic. So other than your passengers, there were very few distractions inside the cockpit of your car, added to which, if you were anywhere north of Watford you could drive for 3 days and still not come into contact with another driver. These days things are different, there are 30 million cars registered and many of those cars have more distracting gadgets fitted than the flight deck of Concorde (that big noisy plane that managed 0-60 a tad faster than a VW Scirocco) and it took a full crew of pilots and engineers to master that little beauty. Unlike us drivers they had little chance of coming across a white van in which the driver had an iPod earpiece in one ear and a mobile phone pressed against the other whilst eating a sandwich. In a study commissioned by Continental Tyres it was found that British drivers only concentrate for two thirds of their time behind the wheel. More than half also said they switch to ‘auto-pilot mode’ (now that’s a gadget I’d like to have fitted on my next car) during their daily trips between home and work. Tuning the radio, talking to passengers and looking at the scenery were at the top of the list of distractions. I think I need a fuller explanation of the word ‘scenery’ here! This is frightening and something we should all think about when we are trundling along the motorway, whilst we may be concentrating, one in three of those we are passing aren’t! By Graham Hill