How Distracted are you While Driving?

At Conestoga Collision, we deal with fixing the aftermath of vehicle accidents and collisions.  Very often, we hear about what contributed to these accidents.

“I was looking in the rearview mirror at my child fidgeting in his safety seat.”

“The woman behind me was texting and ran into my bumper.”

“I was reaching for my phone charger which had fallen between the seats.”

It led us to wonder, how distracted are we out there on the roads? What are our most common distractions and of them, what can we prevent?

Most folks are very distracted by passengers in the car for any number of reasons. We carry on conversations with friends and family as we drive, but this is generally not the worst of what we encounter. More often than not we are concerned with children in the back seat. The safety of infants in rear facing seats has been reported as highly distracting by both men and women alike. Generally this comes from new parents who are concerned about the security of the child in the seat itself. Naturally, we also get distracted by fussy or upset children in our cars as well. As parents, we know it is best to see that they are well settled before long and short trips alike.

What else distracts us that we can have a hand in preventing? How much of your morning routine carries over to your vehicle? Many folks report to eating breakfast, shaving and applying makeup while on their morning commute. How much of this could be prevented if we call got up a little earlier.

Naturally. the most popular enemy of focused driving these days is the cell phone. Texts, emails and calls keep far too many drivers thinking about everything but the road and fellow commuters. How much of your drive time is taken up by your phone? How much could be prevented?