Distracted driving takes many different forms. Some people text and drive. Others eat in the car after swinging through the dive-thru. Still others try to do personal grooming, like shaving on the way to work. Parents often get distracted by their children; teens often get distracted by their friends.
No matter what form it takes, though, distracted driving is incredibly dangerous. It can and does lead to fatal car accidents, and those that are serious, yet not fatal. Below are four ways that it does so:
- The driver may miss critical events that happen on the road around them. For instance, rear-end accidents happen when drivers fail to see that traffic has backed up ahead of them at an accident site or a road construction zone.
- The driver may not catch clear cues from other drivers, such as one driver turning their blinker on before merging.
- The driver may not see objects or even people that are in the way. For example, they could completely overlook a stop sign or fail to see a jogger who is crossing the road ahead of them.
- The driver may actively “abandon control” of the car. They may not think of it this way, but that’s exactly what they’re doing when they take their hands off of the wheel and look away from the road. They’re now driving at 60 miles per hour in an uncontrolled vehicle, merely hoping for the best.
These examples do not include all of the hazards of distracted driving, but they do help to show you why it’s so dangerous and why it keeps causing accidents. If you get injured by a distracted driver, you may have a right to compensation.