Defining Distracted Driving
Imagine you’re driving in your car. You notice the person in front of you is braking for no reason and looking down frequently. What is your first thought? They must be texting, right?
While you may be correct in many cases, cell phone use is not the only cause for distracted driving. In fact, traffic safety experts have identified three main categories of distractions: manual, visual, and cognitive. Basically, you may have more distractions than you think.
With 1.6 million crashes and almost 400,000 injuries occurring each year caused by distracted driving, it is especially important that we understand what it means exactly to drive while distracted.
Types of Distractions
Visual distractions are the most common, and involve anything from checking your GPS to fixing your makeup in the mirror. Anything that causes you to take your eyes from the road in front of you counts as a visual distraction.
A manual distraction is anything that involves taking one or more of your hands off the wheel, which can be just as dangerous. Eating, smoking, or rifling around for your sunglasses in the center console are all examples of manual distractions.
Less obvious are the cognitive distractions that take the driver’s attention away from the task at hand. These include things like driving under the influence, but also road rage or arguing with a passenger.
With all that is going on in the world and in our lives, it is all too easy to be distracted while driving. Here are some tools you can use to help put an end to distracted driving in your life.
Tools to Help You Stay Focused on the Road
1. Bring the whole family in with TrueMotion
TrueMotion is a distracted driving app the whole family can enjoy. It is free to download and will give you a complete snapshot of your family’s driving safety.
With TrueMotion you can see how each person got to their destination, whether they were speeding or not, and whether they were using their phone while they were driving.
The app keeps track of everyone’s driving records and gives each driver a safety score the whole family can see. A little friendly competition never hurt anyone.
2. ‘Share Your Where’ with Glympse
Glympse is an app that lets you provide updates on your ETA and traffic conditions without your hands leaving the wheel or eyes leaving the road.
You can now let your spouse you’ll be home a little late from work or tell your client that the traffic was worse than you were expecting without risking yours and others’ lives by texting an update.
The app is free to download and people do not need to have an account to receive a message sent through the app.
3. Tackle distracted driving in your business with Truce
If you’re looking for a way to keep your employees accountable to your standards of distracted driving, check out Truce.
Truce allows you to set up zones around your workplace so that whether someone is driving a company car or operating heavy machinery, you can make sure they’re focused on the task at hand.
The service will cost you some money, but if you’re serious about workplace safety it’s worth it.
4. Incentivize safe driving with Motovate
Motovate is an app that taps into our brain’s reward center to encourage safe driving habits.
When you activate the app, your phone’s notifications are paused. Every mile you drive without picking up your phone you get points that you can cash in for real rewards.
Create teams in your home or workplace to help keep each other accountable.