Keeping it Real Behind the Wheel

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Keeping it RealBehind the Wheel

• Your Name Here
• Title
• Agency

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To do two things at once is to do neither.

• Publilius Syrus, Roman slave
• First century B.C.

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Statistics

• Keep you safe on the road
• Teens have the highest crash risk of any age
  group.
• The age group with the greatest proportion of
  distracted drivers was the under-20 age group.
  (NHTSA)
• Limited driving experience
• Passengers
• Alcohol use
• Not wearing seat belts
• Sleep deprivation
• Cell phones and texting

• Motor vehicle crashes is the leading cause of
  death of 3 34 year olds.
• __of the crashes in (Your) County resulted from
  driver inattention/distraction in 2010.
  (www.safeny.ny.gov)

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What is Distracted Driving?

• Visual something that takes your eyes off the
  road
• In-car technology
• Out-of-car distractions
• Cognitive something that takes your mind off
  the road
• Emotions road rage, conversations, drowsiness,
  sickness
• People usually dont realize when they are
  cognitively distracted.
• Manual something that takes your hands off the
  wheel
• Cell phones
• I-pods
• Laptops

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Drowsy Driving is Distracted Driving100,000
crashes each year are caused by fatigued
drivers.

• Whos at risk? Young people (16-29 year olds)
• Drivers under the age of 25 are involved in more
  than ½ of all crashes in which drivers have
  fallen asleep.
• What are some warning signs of drowsy driving?
• How do we avoid driving while tired?
• Get enough sleep
• Avoid alcohol
• Limit driving between midnight-6am
• Drink caffeine
• Recognize the signs and take action!

Source National Sleep Foundation
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Drowsy Driving in Broome County
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Cell Phone Exercise

• Volunteer Fast texter
• I have to have the car home by nine or my
  parents will kill me.
• Record 7.5 seconds

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Driver Distractions

• For every 1 mile per hour, a car travels 1.47
  feet per second.
• Traveling at 40 mph, a car will travel 59 feet in
  1 second.
• If you take your eyes off the road for 2 seconds,
  youve just traveled 118 feet.
• The average response time is about 1.5 seconds.
• Your total distance traveled is 206.5 feet before
  you could step on the brake or take evasive
  action.

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That is

• 13 Toyota Camrys
• 25 Mini Coopers
• 3 18 Wheelers
• Just short a 747
• 70 yards on a football field

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Multitasking and the Brain

• Human brains do not perform two tasks at the same
  time.
• Process
• Select information brain will attend to
• Process information
• Encode to create a memory
• Store information
• Retrieve
• Execute or act on information

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Distractions and the Brain
Marcel Just, Director of the Center for Cognitive
Brain Imaging Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburg
h, Pennsylvania
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Main result The parietal activation associated
with driving decreases substantially (by 37)
with sentence listening.
Driving While Sentence Listening
Driving Alone
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Increase in Driver Error

• Increase in weaving
• Increase in the number of hits to the side of the
  road
• 8.7 hits in driving alone
• 12.8 hit in driving with sentences
• Our brains cant do two things at once

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Inattention Blindness
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Encoding Stage

• Brain filters information due to overload
• Drivers not aware of information filtered out
• Information does not get into memory
• Drivers miss critical information on potential
  hazards

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Looking But Not Seeing

• Drivers using cell phones fail to see up to 50
  of the information in their driving environment.
• Hands-free is not risk free. Less likely to see
• High and low relevant objects
• Visual cues
• Exits, red lights and stop signs
• Navigational signage
• Content of objects

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The Monkey Business Illusion The Invisible
Gorilla

• A driver must always be prepared to respond to
  the unexpected.
• If we are multitasking- we cannot do that.

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Passenger Conversations

• Adult passengers share awareness of driving
  situation, a safety benefit.
• Front seat passenger reduce crash risk by 38
  compared to cell phone conversations.
• Adults with passengers have lower crash rates
  than adults without passengers.
• Not true for novice teen drivers

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To do two things at once is to do neither.

• Publilius Syrus, Roman slave
• First century B.C.

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Consequences of a Crash

• Fatalities
• Injuries
• 450,000 teenagers are injured but survive.
• Broken bones
• Bruising
• Traumatic brain injury (lifelong)
• Spinal cord injury
• 30,000 are hospitalized

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Distracted Driving is Deadly

• Turn off the phone
• Four times more likely to crash on a cell phone.
• Hands-free is not necessarily risk-free. Your
  brain doesnt know the difference.
• Effective July 12 Illegal to use handheld
  electronic devices while vehicle is in motion. 3
  driver penalty points and 150 fine. Primary
  offence.
• Plan ahead
• Have alternate routes in mind.
• Give yourself enough time.
• Make adjustments
• Adjust music, climate controls, GPS devices and
  mirrors BEFORE you drive.
• Designate a rider
• Help you navigate, be an alternate driver, answer
  text messages and phone calls for you.
• Have the right attitude about driving
• You are driving a 3,000lb weapon with the
  potential to kill.
• Remember, you might be the safest driver on the
  road but that doesnt mean everyone else is.
• So make good choices and use common sense.

Source National Road Safety Foundation
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Any questions?
Picture taken from Nationwide Insurance
Distracted Driver Survey Bill Windsor Associate
Vice President of Safety