Technology Addiction and Distracted Driving

I saw a quote that read, “Our obsession with using mobile devices every hour of every day boils down to technology addition. Because it’s an addiction, most people have trouble managing it, especially when driving a vehicle. People of all ages have become addicted to their mobile devices, which can have dire consequences on the road with distracted driving.”

The average person looks at their phone 50 to 70 times a day. Why? We have been trained by our mobile devices to reach for them. Each time we hear a ping, we receive a dopamine hit in our brains and the dopamine clouds our judgment.

This happens more with younger drivers than those of my generation, because they’ve spent more time with their mobile devices. The younger generation knows their way around these devices, so there’s a higher probability of an accident while driving. With the need for more drivers in the trucking industry, congress is pushing to lower the age for drivers to get CDLs.  This will just make the problem worse.

There are three types of driving distractions:

1. Cognitive. Your mind is not thinking about driving.

2. Visual. Your eyes are off the road.

3. Manual. Your hands are off the steering wheel.

Just asking drivers not to use their mobile devices will not solve the problem. If this is an addiction, help is needed to break it. Having a mobile device use policy is a good first step. New technology solutions like in-vehicle cameras, software apps that prevent drivers from using apps while driving, or perhaps creating incentives for driver compliance and good behavior might be possible motivating factors.

Safety always. Let’s make every effort to pull our eyes off the screen and focus them back on the road.