Forget texting and driving or talking on the phone and driving: Those extremely dangerous habits are old news for young people these days. The new worry is cleverly called “webbing while driving.”
My advice to anyone who does this, “Quit googling yourself and just drive.” It seems like common sense not to use the internet while behind the wheel. Of course webbing not only involves cruising Facebook and looking up Web pages at red lights, but following driving directions as well.
Although driving directions are not as dangerous as reading and composing e-mails all these activities require sustained concentration and multiple key presses, which all lead to distracted driving. A Carnegie Mellon study found that talking on a cell phone reduces driving-related brain activity by 37 percent. Would you ever blind fold yourself 37 percent and try to drive? No, I don’t think you would.
But among the 912 smart-phone users surveyed, more than 19 percent of them “webbed” while driving, the company said. That’s nearly one smart-phone-equipped driver out of every five.
Close to 40 percent of Americans have smart phones now, and that number is growing fast. And though we are frequently reminded not to text and drive, the safety message may not have caught up to the current technology.
Driver distraction plays a role in 8 out of every 10 car accidents in North America, according to the IBC. That equates to four million accidents. That means over four million people have their lives detrimentally affected by distractions while on the road; so put down the phone and just drive.
CA