April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month

According to the latest estimates from the National Safety Council (NSC), eight people lose their lives in distraction-affected crashes each day. To bring awareness to this prevalent and consequential issue, the NSC is continuing its #JustDrive campaign this month during Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

At Captive Resources, we work with more than 5,400 companies — many of which operate in transportation-related industries — that participate in the group captives we support. Safe driving is a significant focus and something we stress, not only to our client captives but to our own employees. If you’re looking to step up your company’s safe driving practices (or just to improve your own driving), we highly recommend exploring the NSC's resources on distracted driving.

About Distracted Driving Awareness Month

Distracted drivers pose a significant risk to the overall safety of our roads. Today’s drivers face a seemingly endless array of distractions — whether it’s talking on the phone (or to others in the car), changing what you’re listening to, or even activities as simple as eating and drinking. To help shine a light on this issue and help us understand the implications of the choices we make on the road, April has been designated as Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

This month, the NSC is promoting The Just Drive Pledge to help drivers hold themselves accountable behind the wheel. The NSC is also offering valuable resources like:

• Instructions on how to set up a safe driving policy for your organization.
• Posters that you can display around your workplace to raise awareness about the risks of driving distracted.
• Fact sheets with stats on the dangers of distracted driving.

Driving Distractions by the Numbers

Before diving into some additional stats about Distracted Driving Awareness Month, let’s take care of a few definitions:

Distracted Driving: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines distracted driving as “a specific type of inattention that occurs when drivers divert their attention away from the driving task to focus on another activity. The NSC offers three categories for driving distractions:

• Visual distraction: Tasks that require the driver to look away from the roadway to visually obtain information
• Manual distraction: Tasks that require the driver to take a hand off the steering wheel and manipulate a device
• Cognitive distraction: The mental workload associated with a task that involves thinking about something other than driving

Distraction-affected crash: A distraction-affected crash is any crash in which a driver was distracted at the time of the crash.

To emphasize the importance of Distracted Driving Awareness Month, we share some sobering stats from the NSC:

• Distracted driving crashes kill eight people and injure more than 700 drivers every day.
• In 2020, more than 3,100 people died in distraction-affected crashes — an increase of about 1 percent from 2019, which is significant as total miles traveled dropped by 11 percent in 2020.
• Drivers fail to see 50 percent of their surroundings while talking on the phone.

Visit this section of the NSC website to see their full complement of motor vehicle statistics. You can also find more information and resources on the NSC website by visiting their Safety on the Road webpage.

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