Distracted While Driving In Today's Social Norms

At any given time, approximately 1 in 5 drivers around you are reading or writing a text message; quite scary, if you ask me. To put it bluntly today’s social norm is defined by how frequently you stay connected no matter the situation. The use of technology on such an often basis throughout the day, makes it tough for most people to know when to put the phone down. Eating and drinking while driving became such a normal habit, we did it sub-consciously. As a result, texting while driving became the norm like changing the radio station even though one is certainly more dangerous than the other, but until we say all distractions are unaccepted/illegal people will have a difficult time understanding how simple it is to prevent distractions on

To put it another way most experience drivers don’t feel they’re totally distracted from the road even if their attention is somewhere else. However, being distracted while driving, doesn’t only involve the use of our phones. Distracted driving is any action that involves you taking your eye’s, mind or hand of the wheel while driving. For example; eating, drinking while driving or talking on the cellphone, are a few actions that, causes a distraction while on the road. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA) there are three kinds of distracted driving: manual, visual, and cognitive (Adminstration, n.d.). Texting while driving is one of the most dangerous distraction because it involves all three types of distraction all at once. For instance, you a receive a text while driving that says, “Are you on your way?”. Your mind starts to focus on your location at that present moment, instead of you paying attention to the road, this is considered cognitive distraction. Visual distraction occurred when you read the text, your eyes were no longer looking at the road ahead. When you applied to the text “Yes, I am on the way” manual distraction happened because you no longer had both of your hands on the