How often do you talk on the phone, look at email messages, check the news or weather, read or composts text messages while you're driving? We take pride in our ability to multi-task, but at what cost? Centuries of accountants managed to drive from point A to point B without phones in their hands. Today, it seems everyone is connected.
Does our connectivity enhance our productivity, or should we rethink how we spend that time behind the wheel?
Author and work-life balance expert Jeff Davidson shares his distracted driving statistics in the latest installment of his monthly work-life balance series, By the Numbers. These sobering numbers might be enough to make you reconsider keeping both hands on the wheel.
- 812,000 drivers are distracted by a handheld device at any given moment (U.S. DOT).
- In the U.S. each year, 600,000 crashes are attributed to distracted driving, resulting in 330,000 injuries and 3,000 deaths.
- Worldwide, as many as 1.2 million deaths and 80 million injuries are caused by distracted driving.
- 45 percent of poll respondents admit to driving and using their cell phones at night.
- Driving while using a handheld or even hands-free mobile device can delay response time as much as a drunk driver with a 0.08 blood alcohol content.
- A driver talking on a cell phone increases his or her accident risk by four times.
- Texting while driving increases accident risk by 23 times.
- Half of U.S. drivers admit to being distracted by a cell p hone while driving.
- 25 percent of U.S. drivers admitted talking on a mobile phone while in heavy traffic.
- 30 percent admit to using their device while driving in snow or wet weather.
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Tags: Firm Management, Small Business, Technology
