Thursday, March 20, 2014

Car-aoke Anyone? Study Reveals Top Activity While Driving

New consumer survey from DMEautomotive released in conjunction with National Collision Awareness month reveals that 'distracted driving' activities are still rampant: 28% surveyed admitted that they text; half eat or talk on the phone; 5% read, work on laptop, floss or shave while driving; young are the biggest offenders

Singing out loud is the number one activity while driving, according to a consumer survey from DMEautomotive released in conjunction with National Collision Awareness month. And more dangerous distracted driving activities such as sending/receiving a text, talking on the phone, and eating, rank in the top five activities performed while driving.

While singing out loud doesn't make distraction.gov's list of distracted driving activities, the rest in the top five do. This is sobering given that in 2012 alone, 3,328 people were killed in distracted-driving crashes.


And, according to the DMEa survey, younger drivers are much more likely to be multi-tasking while driving: Roughly 9 in 10 admit to engaging in other activities while driving – and they are significantly more likely to be doing every single distracted driving behavior measured in the survey from texting, eating, talking on phone, using email, watching TV, working on laptop, changing clothes and putting on makeup.
The survey also revealed that women are more avid 'car-aokers' than men, and they are also more likely to eat or have a phone conversation while driving.

 
The DMEautomotive survey, which was fielded among approximately 2,000 consumers in late 2013, measured activities consumers engaged in while driving in the past month.

Distracted.gov defines distracted driving as any activity that could divert a person's attention away from the primary task of driving.  And, as reported in the Harvard Mental Health Letter: Dr. Michael Miller, editor in chief, says that although people like to think they can multitask, cognitive research suggests that the brain tends to focus on one major activity at a time.

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