Assignment 6/25

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Part 3
AAA Warns Congress On Distracted Driving
Editor's Note: The following was reprinted from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety's Web site, http://www.aaafts.org/
Testimony for Presentation at the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Hearing on Driver Distractions: Electronic Devices in the Automobile Wednesday, May 9, 2001 at 10 a.m. Jane C. Stutts, Ph.D.Manager, Epidemiological Studies University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research CenterChapel Hill, NC Driver inattention is a major contributor to highway crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that at least 25 percent of police-reported crashes involve some form of driver inattention. Driver distraction is one form of inattention, and is a factor in over half of these crashes. Distraction occurs when a driver is delayed in the recognition of information needed to safely accomplish the driving task, because something within or outside the vehicle draws his attention away from driving. The presence of a triggering event distinguishes a distracted driver from one who is simply inattentive or "lost in thought."
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety awarded a contract to the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center to conduct research on the role of driver distraction in traffic crashes. The goal of the project is to identify (using both crash and field data) the major sources of distraction to drivers and the relative importance of the distractions as potential causes of crashes. As a part of this project, we have recently completed a descriptive analysis of five years of Crashworthiness Data System (or CDS) data, made available to us by NHTSA's National Center for Statistics and Analysis.
The CDS is a national, annual probability sample of approximately 5,000 police-reported crashes involving at least one passenger vehicle that has been towed from the crash scene. Data are collected by trained professional crash investigation teams that visit the scene of the crash, examine the crash-involved vehicles, interview the crash victims and other witnesses, and review available medical records. Beginning in 1995, "Driver's Distraction/Inattention to Driving" was added to the CDS variable list. The variable includes codes for "attentive," "looked but did not see," and "sleepy or asleep," along with more than a dozen specific distractions (eating or drinking, other occupants in vehicle, moving object in vehicle, talking on cellular phone, etc.).
For the current analysis two variables were defined - one identifying the attention status of the driver (attentive, distracted, sleepy/asleep, or unknown), and the second the specific distracting event for those drivers identified as distracted. For the overall 1995-1999 CDS data, 48.6 percent of the drivers were identified as attentive at the time of their crash; 8.3 percent were identified as distracted, 5.4 percent as "looked but did not see," and 1.8 percent as sleepy or asleep. The remaining 35.9 percent were coded either as unknown or no driver present. This high percentage of drivers with unknown attention status dilutes the percentages in the other categories. Without the unknowns, the percentage of drivers identified as distracted increases to 12.9 percent. The percentage of actual crashes involving driver distraction would be still higher.
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The amount of distracted drivers is very high. In fact, looking but not seeing should be no excuse at all. That is why you should always double check everything that you do, because a mistake while driving could be deadly. Even though this research is old, it is good that it was done.