Given the mount of local and national awareness that has developed over the dangers and penalties associated with drinking and driving in recent years, you likely feel pretty safe when traveling on Knoxville’s streets. Yet were aware that all around your, countless drivers are engaging in activity that can be just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated? Several of the clients that we here at Pryor, Priest and Harber have worked with have discovered the hard way the risk posed by those who choose to eat and drive.
You might immediately question what is the harm in eating while driving, yet it is not the effect that causes the risk, but rather the distraction. Data compiled by the Auto Alliance and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recognizes three common types of distractions that occur while driving:
- Visual
- Manual
- Cognitive
If you take a moment to truly think about it, it while driving causes one to experience all three. Line of sight must be diverted when unwrapping packages or picking up food that has fallen. Hands are taken off the wheel to hold food. One’s attention is also impacted as he or she tries not to make a mess while eating.
Research shared by Exxon Mobil shows that as many as 70 percent of motorist may eat while driving. With so few seeing eating behind the wheel as problem, the likelihood that the person who struck you may have been eating might actually be quite high. Look for telltale signs that could indicate he or she indeed had been divulging in this distraction at the time of your accident.
More information on the dangers of distracted driving can be found here on our site.