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Your Distracted Driver Obligations

Filed under: safety — Tags: distracted driving and construction — nedpelger

If you help manage construction projects, you are a distracted driver. All the changes and struggling that happens on a project doesn’t flee from your brain when you get behind the wheel. I got pulled over by a state trooper last year and he said he’d been following me for a mile with his lights on and I hadn’t noticed. He thought I was drunk. I explained I’d just got out of a construction job meeting, he saw rolls of blueprints in my vehicle and he just shook his head and gave me a warning.

Our level of distraction dramatically increases, though, when we chat on our mobile phones while driving. Texting while driving is even worse. Tudor VanHampton’s ENR blog asks, “Are You a Distracted Driver?” We all know we are. We also understand the danger of the physical world…how quickly our lives or our friend’s lives can end on a construction site or in a car accident. VanHampton writes:

The National Transportation Safety Board has asked states to “put the brakes on distracted driving,” and it will be interesting to see if more construction companies adopt policies banning the use of cell phones and other portable devices while their employees are driving vehicles or operating equipment.

The NTSB’s recommendation stems from a construction work-zone pileup in Gray Summit, Mo. A pickup truck driver merged behind a heavy-duty tractor, which had slowed to enter a work zone, and struck the larger truck’s backside. Two school buses piled on top of the pickup, which flipped on top of the tractor.

The research clearly shows that talking on the phone, even hands free, impairs driving ability. Anyone who honestly evaluates their own driving while using a mobile phone will agree to some level of distraction. So what obligations do we have if we make that conclusion?

Never check email or text while driving, the information pulls you in and the distraction level quickly becomes dangerous.
Don’t initiate phone calls while driving. We all want more hours in the day, we all want to get more done, but is it worth hitting a child with your car?
I’m still struggling with this one, but I think our final obligation is to not answer our cell phone when driving. Don’t look who’s calling, don’t just have a quick chat. If it’s truly important, pull over and talk.

So if we truly value safety, we need to consider the elimination of cell phone use while driving. It’s the right thing to do.

I dedicate this post to Jared and Jacy Good, who lost both their parents in a car accident because of a distracted driver using his cell phone. Jacy struggled from the edge of death through months of surgeries and rehab. She has become a safe driving advocate. Here’s her story.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwAUkh_7pKA

The take-away? Distracted driving kills. Safe driving starts with you.

Here’s the sign Jacy wears on her coat, to give folks a quick insight.