The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says each year, hundreds of thousands of road users in Michigan and across the country fall victim to drivers who are distracted. Thousands of victims do not survive, and of those who do, many suffer life-changing injuries. Safety authorities say distracted driving is categorized into three primary groups.
Many people think that distracted driving involves only cellphone use and texting. However, manual distractions are prevalent and involve anything that requires the driver to use his or her hands to eat, drink, smoke, groom or any other tasks that involve the hands. The second type is visual distractions, which occur when the driver’s eyes are taken from the road to set the GPS, read messages, put on makeup or shave, and even focusing on road accidents or billboards.
Cognitive distractions are difficult to describe because they involves the mind of the driver. Emotions such as anger, sadness and worries can become overwhelming, and take the driver’s attention away from the road. Daydreaming and being too involved in conversations with passengers also fall in this category. What makes texting so dangerous is the fact that it involves all three these types of distractions — manual, visual and cognitive.
The lives of many Michigan drivers are so busy that being distracted is almost par for the course, and it takes willpower to avoid distractions. Victims of car accidents that were caused by distracted drivers may have questions about the viability of a personal injury lawsuit. Proving that a driver was distracted is never easy, and an experienced car accident attorney might be the best person to help with establishing negligence, which is necessary for a civil lawsuit to be viable.
