A previous post on this blog discussed who people are most likely to be communicating with when they choose to engage in distracted driving. This same report also described what some might call a distracted driving season, that is, a time of the year in which it is more likely that an innocent Texas motorist might be victimized by a distracted driver.
Specifically, in June, July and August, the frequency of distracted driving goes up about 10 percent over the rest of the year.
More disturbingly, during the summer months, there is a 40 percent chance that a given driver one sees on the road is operating distracted for 15 minutes per every hour he or she drives. When one considers that being distracted for even a second can cause a fatal car accident, driving distracted for 15 minutes is simply a recipe for disaster.
The report suggests that the reason there is a defined distracted driving season in this country is two-fold. One, during the summer, younger drivers who otherwise would be attending high school and college have more time to drive on the roads and may even need to do so for things like work and summer activities.
Furthermore, in the summer, drivers of all ages take vacations and other trips. Someone in Killeen may, for instance, want to take a trip to the Texas Coast or to another part of this great state or, for that matter, to another part of the country. Perhaps because doing so will involve unfamiliar routes and other considerations to which one might otherwise give little thought, distracted driving is more common.
Texas drivers should be aware of the possibility that there will be more distracted drivers on the road. If they happened to be involved in an accident with a distracted driver, they may be able to get compensation through a personal injury lawsuit.