NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Every year, distracted driving kills thousands nationwide, making it one of the fastest growing safety issues on America’s roadways today. April marks National Distracted Driving Awareness Month and AAA is taking the opportunity to remind drivers to avoid distractions and keep their focus on the road.
"There's a variety of things that can distract us when we're driving," said Shawn Steward with AAA Kansas. "The most common is clearly our mobile phones. There's also other things in the vehicle, including our infotainment and navigation systems, eating and drinking while you are driving, even holding a conversation with another person in the vehicle or dealing with your kids doing things in the back seat. There's a lot of things that can divert your attention away from the task of safe driving."
Because of the challenges for law enforcement in determining if distracted driving was the primary factor in a traffic incident, the number of crashes, injuries and fatalities due to distraction is believed to be grossly underreported.
"If you're taking your eyes off the road to text or to do something with your phone, that's certainly a huge concern," Steward said. "There's also the mental distraction. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has done some research. It can take up to 27 seconds for the impairing effects of mental distraction once a driver stops interacting with technology in the vehicle."
In Kansas, there were 81 fatal vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver in 2021, down slightly from 84 the previous year, according to NHTSA data. However, the number of fatalities due to those distracted driving crashes in Kansas increased from 90 in 2020 to 93 in 2021, a 3.3% increase in deaths due to distracted driving.
"You may be visually seeing the road, but if your mind is taking time to re-engage from that text that you just read or that TikTok video that you just saw, you may not be able to truly react to what you are seeing on the road, if a vehicle pulls out in front of you or slams on the brakes in front of you. It's not just the visual aspect of distraction, but it's also the mental element that we have to pay attention to."
NHTSA defines a distraction-affected crash as any crash in which police identified the driver as distracted at the time of the crash. Distraction can be attributed to 17 different causes as identified by the FARS database, including smartphones; general driver inattention; eating, drinking or smoking; passengers; distractions outside the vehicle; a moving object in the vehicle; or interacting with in-vehicle controls.
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