Thousands of lives are compromised due to careless or distracted driving practices and need special attention to be avoided. The use of mobile phones had been and still is the main culprit to cause significant distractions while driving and had taken many lives. But in the last few years, researchers show many more reasons for life-threatening and taking accidents that we may never think of.
1. Distraction caused by kids and pets
Accepting it or not driving with kids, infants, and pets in the car is a challenging job. They are far more attention-seeking than adults. Many motor vehicle accidents have proven that young children grab their parents’ attention for about 20% in a 16 minutes drive. Whereas, if you talk about the pets which majorly includes dogs acquire a lot of the driver’s loving attention during the trip. It has been observed that people make their pets sit in their lap while driving and sometimes they are feeding them, which is surely a dangerous call to an unpleasant situation.
2. Enjoying your favorite song
Almost everybody loves to listen to their favorite music while they are making runs from one place to another. Young drivers are prone to listen to loud and fast music which affects their mental and physical behavior and makes them drive recklessly. It is advised to listen to soft and decreased volume music and be vigilant by keeping your eyes on the road. It is better to be safe than to suffer.
3. Eating while driving
This one is a common practice amongst many since everybody is in a rush to be on time to work or to run their daily errands. It is ideal to plan tasks and execute them in advance to avoid car accidents. Distracted driving may become a lifelong regret so better be careful than late.
4. Reaching for stuff from the back seat or dashboard
It is highly recommended to keep all the stuff that you may need while driving by your side instead of reaching for them from the back seat or dashboard. It will hardly take you a minute or two to keep things organized and within your reach before you start your trip.
5. Driving while emotional moved
Our emotions and good or bad mood impacts our actions extensively, hence driving under such circumstances can be threatening. It is ideal to calm yourself down in such a case to prevent any sort of accident.
6. Use of hands-free devices
The emerging technologies and devices are surely made for our ease but they can cause major distractions too. Multi-tasking divides your attention to a great extent. Being on a call or recording voice notes through hands-free devices is a great choice but it affects concentration for around 20-30 seconds when you are done. Therefore, by the time you get fully back to driving mode, there is a chance of getting struck by an accident.
7. Nature’s call
Driving with a full bladder tends to make the driver rush to a resting spot which makes you drive carelessly eventually leading to minor to major accidents.