They’re here: distracted driving parents. – the back-to-school problem in Fort Lauderdale
Not the school buses. Not the children at the crosswalks and sidewalks, although their presence is important for any driver. Not the flood of tourists – yet.
No. It’s the parents driving their kids to school. The parents distracted by their children in the car – not having the time to feed them before leaving the house and passing around juice bottles while switching lanes. Looking behind them to issue a warning to a child having a tantrum instead of focusing on the road.
The return of school means the return of another sort of distracted driver. Personal injury from a car accident can affect a life for days, months and years to come – a child, or anyone, could sustain a lifetime of injuries. For parents, it’s not the cell phone that disrupts their travels – it’s the hurried life of running errands and traveling to and from school with children in the car.
Driving problems on the road don’t only involve drivers distracted by cell phones. An article from Parents Magazine (http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/safety/car/the-most-dangerous-drivers/) speaks directly to this problem in citing one case in which a mother even went so far as to reach back “to deflect a carsick kid’s vomit out a window with a sun visor.” Another mom admitted to hunting around for “dropped toys, offered bottles, and even changed a DVD while she was driving,” according to the article.
The article states that parents of young children run the greatest risk of being distracted behind the wheel. An AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study revealed that children are about four times as distracting to drivers as adult passengers are, while babies are eight times more distracting. Additionally, the study showed that:
Distractions are common in everyday driving.
All subjects manipulated vehicle controls and nearly all reached for objects in the vehicle.
Almost as many manipulated the sound system or were distracted by objects or events outside the vehicle.
Approximately one-third of subjects used a cell phone while driving.
Forty percent engaged in reading or writing.
Drivers were engaged in some form of potentially distracting activity up to 16.1% of the total time their vehicles were moving.
Drivers were more likely to engage in most of the distracting activities while the car was not in motion.
South Florida has a high density of population and heavily traveled roads – those alone make for plenty of distractions. The Parents Magazine article cites the time it takes to react, about .25 seconds to register a hazard, such as a child on a bike crossing the street, another .25 seconds to decide the next move and 3 seconds for the foot to engage the brakes. Traveling at 30 miles per hour, the driver would need 132 feet to stop.
The most startling, and troublesome, part of the article discusses how careless drivers are in school zones – one in six drivers observed in a school zone were distracted by talking on a phone, eating, reading, grooming, or reaching behind them. Women were more likely to be inattentive drivers and the bigger the vehicle, the more potential for a driver to be zoned out while in a school zone. Findings indicate that people may lose patience in school zones and congested areas, where the slow pace and the stop and go of cars raises stress and anxiety levels, making drivers more impatient than they would be otherwise. People often rationalize that it’s OK to check the phone – schedules are busy, they are late to an appointment, other drivers are doing it, so why can’t they?
To prevent hazards to children, both in the vehicle and walking outside the vehicle, parents should take a second to breathe, plan in advance and always think before acting. Here are some tips:
Get everyone up a few minutes earlier and feed the children before getting in the car. Providing snacks and juice in the vehicle makes children associate the car with food, and increase their demands when they’re in the vehicle. This is good advice for the parent, too – nourish yourself before you prepare to drive.
Always turn off the cell phone before getting behind the wheel. The fewer distractions, the better, especially if the trip is a short one. On longer rides, set ringtones to help you identify the caller; for example, your spouse, or your children.
Discipline yourself to not touch any gadget while you’re driving – knobs on the radio or the DVD player.
Make sure your children know that you a “hands off” rule applies to all devices while you’re driving.
Think of yourself, your children and others on the road when you drive. A personal injury litigation attorney in Fort Lauderdale is there to help should an accident occur, but preventing disaster is always the best way forward.
