Every year, numerous fatalities occur because of road accidents in USA. One strong reason for this is distracted driving. Distracted driving implies doing something, thus diverting one’s attention to other activity and not driving. Such distracted activities increase the chances of vehicle crashes and casualties. Below are the types of distracted car driving which are the main causes for road accidents.
Types of distracted driving: Distracted driving can be of three types – visual, manual, and cognitive. Any of the three may cause distraction and result in disaster. Let us discuss them briefly.
- Visual Distraction: It is like taking your eyes off the road. For instance, while you are driving, you got a text message, without any second thought you just pick the phone and start reading the message. May be, it is an important one or just a spam you cannot resist from reading the message. This anxiety distracts your attention and you may go in the wrong direction.
- Manual distraction: This is involves taking your hand off the driving wheel. For example, you are feeling hungry and you are trying to open the snack packet with one hand. You tried hard but it didn’t work out. Without any intention or with a kind of confidence as if you can handle the situation, you take off both the hands from the steering wheel to open the pack.
- Cognitive distraction: This kind of distraction is not physical. Your eyes will be on the road and your hands will be firm on the wheel, but the only thing that is missing is your mind, which is thinking about other things rather than on driving. This kind of distraction is more dangerous than the preceding two and hence should be avoided to stay safe. Cognitive distraction happens mostly while you are speaking over the phone while driving. At that point of time, you concentrate more on the conversation and less on driving. Hence, such kind of things should be avoided while driving.
An action that distracts you visually manually and cognitively is texting, and hence considered the most dangerous while driving. While texting your eyes will be off the road and on the phone resulting in visual distraction, one of your hands will be off the wheel and on the keypad causing manual distraction and finally your mind will be thinking what to type and how to reply causing cognitive distraction. If one distraction, itself, is causing so much of damage, imagine how the reaction would be if all three happen in a same case. Hence, not only texting but also any activities, that can distract your attention from driving should be avoided to drive safely.