I’m a good distracted driver — it’s you who has a problem
People using phones while behind the wheel are in denial, Lorraine Sommerfeld says.
There are probably none so delusional than those assessing their own driving ability. How is it that, when asked, people, almost to a one, will tell you they are an excellent driver? Yet everyone will also report that nearly everyone around them on the road is a terrible one?
That’s some magic right there, because it surely isn’t math.
A new survey from Desjardins Insurance has produced some revealing, but sadly not surprising, results: “93 per cent of drivers think they rarely or never drive distracted by a cellphone, but at the same time, 84 per cent claim they often or always see others driving distracted by cellphones.”
Self-reporting surveys offer anonymity, which should produce more honesty, but they also reveal the 1+1=9 conundrum: Nothing ever adds up.
We’ve always had distractions. Changing radio stations, mucking with temperature settings, reaching for the baby’s soother that has been chucked under a seat, trying to work open the little hatch on the coffee cup — none of that is new. It’s just that today’s distractions are a different beast.
That ping that your phone emits when you receive a text rewards you with a hit of dopamine — the same chemical your brain emits when you’ve had a great meal or fun sex. No wonder we keep reaching for it. Our reward goes much deeper than finding the right song or the right temperature.
We’re distracting ourselves to death.
The Desjardin survey highlights the futility of what most of us consider the most effective tool we have: the law. Sure, 98 per cent of respondents know it’s against the law to be using their phone. But very few care.
Robyn Robertson is the president and chief executive of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation. She says it’s time to look beyond what the law can do, and address what we, as drivers and passengers, can do to start altering behaviour.
“We need to recognize that driving has three components: manual, visual and cognitive,” she says. A microsecond of inattention, a single missed environmental cue, can compromise any of those.
She says driving is a very rote behaviour; we frequently follow the same paths every day, and shuttle that information to a part of our brain that perceives it as less important, or at least less dire. How many times have you been driving and realized you’ve been on mental autopilot, especially on familiar roads you travel often?
The fact remains we are piloting vehicles that can turn into weapons with a single moment of inattention. Robertson says we need to speak up. “We have to make it as socially unacceptable as driving without seatbelts or driving while impaired.”
Driving is something that requires all of your concentration, not a fractured slice of it.
It’s why using a hands-free device is just as distracting as using a hand-held one; your brain is immersed in the conversation, not on driving.
Manufacturers bear responsibility in this mess as well. Our cars are loaded with distracting technology, and often it appears nobody thought it through. Having to dig through three levels of screens to change a radio station or turn down the heat? That’s crazy. Volume controls you can’t work without taking your eyes from the road? Ditto.
Perhaps the most sobering statistic from this survey is this one: 43 per cent of drivers say getting into a collision would stop them from driving distracted. So basically, they are saying “I won’t stop until it costs me money or injury or perhaps a life.”
Of course, that ratio makes us wonder about the most revealing statistic of all: What the hell is wrong with the other 57 per cent?