Items tagged with distracted driving
Chevrolet is spearheading a mobile effort to encourage drivers both young and ol, to put down their smartphones when behind the wheel of an automobile. Ironically (at first glance) the automaker is doing this through a mobile app, Call Me Out, available for Android devices. It's a unique app, however, in that it encourages drivers to put their phone down. That way it works is the app takes recorded messages by family and friends—or whoever—and plays them back to drivers when they pick up their phone. Let's say Erica goes out for a drive. Erica is easily distracted by her phone, whether it's reading text messages or cycling through Spotify playlists. Through the Call Me Out app, her...
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A new report by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) found that pedestrian fatalities in 2016 were the highest they've ever been in the past two decades. States reported 2,660 pedestrian deaths in the first six months of 2016, up from 2,486 in the same time period the previous year. While the numbers are still being tallied, GHSA estimates the full year total to be around 6,000 pedestrian fatalities, and it believes smartphones may be playing a role. "Potential factors contributing to this spike include a better economy, an increase in walking as a primary mode of transportation, and distraction due to growing use of smartphone technology," GHSA said.Image Source: Flickr (Daria Nepriakhina)If...
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Leaving the home is about to become more dangerous than it already is. That's because the holiday shopping season is about to be kick into full swing, that means a combination of inattentive pedestrians looking down at their smartphones and distracted drivers wielding handsets behind the wheel. It makes for a potentially dangerous combination, and since vehicles have the potential to do the most damage, the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed that phone makers include a Driver Mode with a simplified interface. The latest proposal is part of a collection of voluntary guidelines designed to reduce driver distraction caused by mobile...
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Study after study have shown the dangers of driving while distracted, something that has become a growing problem with the advent of smartphones. However, it used to be that making calls and firing off text messages were the biggest culprits. Not anymore. They're still responsible for distracting drivers, but so are smartphone apps, which led to the biggest increase in traffic related fatalities in 50 years in 2015. This year isn't looking much better. Just in the first six months of 2016, highway deaths tallied 17,775, a disheartening gain of 10.4 percent compared to the same six-month period a year ago, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). the situation has...
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We've all seen a distracted motorist veer off into a neighboring lane because he or she was too involved with operating a smartphone to safely navigate an automobile, but would the person be any better off using hands-free technology? Car makers think so, though new research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety suggests that motorists can remain distracted for nearly half a minute after using voice commands. "The lasting effects of mental distraction pose a hidden and pervasive danger that would likely come as a surprise to most drivers," said Peter Kissinger, President and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. "The results indicate that motorists could miss stop signs, pedestrians...
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By now it's been beaten into all of our heads that text messaging or otherwise farting around on a mobile phone while driving is a bad idea. Study after study shows that bad things are prone to happen when we take our eyes off the road and fixate them on our phones or other objects, but according to research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the problem is worse than previously thought. Far worse. In what's being billed as the most comprehensive research ever conducted into crash videos of teen drivers, it was found that distraction as a whole was a factor in nearly 6 out of 10 moderate-to-severe accidents. That's about four times as many as previously thought based on information obtained...
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AT&T sold more than 5.5 million smartphones in Q1 2011, the most it ever sold in any first quarter. During the same period, it added 2 million more wireless subscribers to its roster (now counting 97.5 million). Today it pledged to spend $1 million combating the menace known as texting while driving. AT&T will spend the $1 million over a four-year period with the first $95,000 to be awarded to the National Organizations for Youth Safety. NOYS will use the funds to train 40 students to act as ambassadors for no-texting-while-driving safety. In October, these ambassadors will come to Washington, D.C. to host the first-ever national texting-while-driving-prevention youth summit....
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While distracted driving has certainly received a lot of attention lately, other distractions could also be dangerous. Distracted walking, for instance, is becoming another growing problem. Distracted walking combines a pedestrian, an electronic device, and an unseen danger such as a crack in the sidewalk, toy on the floor, or a car (parked or moving). Although most of the injuries that result from distracted walking aren't near as serious as those that may result from distracted driving, the number of injuries are on the rise. Most of the time, the mishaps for distracted walking are minor—a broken fingernail, bumped head, jammed finger, or a sprained ankle. Many distracted walkers also experienced...
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