Open Post: Driver Distraction. What are you doing about it?

By Julie King
Moderator Extraordinaire
Education for the Driving Masses.com

Re: Driver Distraction and our position on head-on type crashes resulting in fatalities

Dear Readers, visitors and anonymous-drive-by-google-commentators:

I just want to comment on a few particular anonymous comments that violated our commenting guidelines...

Clearly, some people (mostly visitors) don't understand the role and purpose of this website. Many don't take the time to read the requirements for posting comments. Many didn't read why this site exists.

We examine crashes. We try to determine factors. We try to educate the public about why and how head-on crashes happen.

We don't just say "Oh, it was mechanical failure" and go on our merry little way. If it's mechanical, we want to know what will be done to prevent future tragedies. If it's medical, we want to know why a medical condition went untreated to a point it posed a threat to the lives of innocent people on a highway ... and lastly ...

Driver distraction. A causing factor this site has been focusing on lately.

Our calculations have shown that out of the 741 Canadians (as of July 9, 2009) killed since January 2009, almost half were due to head-on type crashes.

Why do you think that is?

Do we have a mass mechanical problem with the cars we are driving and buying in this country?

Do we have people so negligent about their health that they are risking their own lives just so they can keep driving to work?

Or, do we have a myriad of distractions available to drivers that take their eyes of the road for more than two seconds. This can include anything from reaching into the backseat for something, dialing a cellphone, shuffling for a CD, opening: a coffee cup lid; bag of chips; straw paper; burger wrapper, or reading directions.

Almost every Canadian driver, at one point, has been susceptible to being distracted by something in their cars where they've swerved right or left out of their lane. This isn't meant to criminalize the memory of anyone who died doing it. Driver distraction has proven over the past two years to be a REAL social problem among the driving public.

Staff here at Education for the Driving Masses.com aim to try to curb driver distraction as it's been proven to be fatal. We are educating the masses about why taking your eyes off the road can be deadly and are encouraging the driving masses to remove distractions from their car, or pull over to answer their phone, or send a text message. Recently, my 17 year old niece, Hannah, started her in-car driver's training. The first thing her instructor did, even before he ushered Amanda into the car, was he asked for her cellphone and he threw it into the trunk.

If you have a problem with what we are trying to do to combat driver distraction - which may or may not be a factor in most of the head-on crashes we profile on this website - you are free to move on from this site and keep driving on blissfully ignorant to the fatalities on our roads and their causing factors, and how split-second distractions cause years of grief and heartache for those who lose loved ones in these kinds of crashes.

You have our blessing.