Utah DUI Attorney

Distracted driving will at all times be an issue that drivers will have to face day to day. All varieties of electronics are distracting drivers each day. Corresponding to cell phones, laptops, mp3 players and different automotive devices. All of these types of electrics have been a wonderful addition to our world. These electronic devices give us the ability to do great issues in our each day life. But for all our advances we, as mere human beings, can have a tough time juggling our commitments. Many are praised for his or her capacity to multi-job but the truth is our brains had been merely not made to do so!

“So what?” you say. Well, in our day-to-day activities multi-tasking could depart you feeling drained, stressed out, or even un-able to commit and complete a task. We have all done this. A large concern for individuals is multi-tasking when driving. Driving is one of the most harmful day after day activity an individual will do.

I’m not kidding. We as a society, now we have decided driving is an acceptable risk. Driving has turn out to be second nature to anybody that has a driving license. We are able to get better jobs, receive items sooner, and live better lives. A risk that everyone takes when they’re on the highway is driving distracted.

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People are always messing with their phones, texting, calling and even shaving whereas they are driving down the road. While we weave through our overly busy lives this may occasionally seem like harmless follow to get slightly additional done during our “down time”. The unhealthy factor is that all of these distraction trigger over 5,000 deaths and greater than 448,000 accidents on the road. While driving with some of these distractions your response time might be decreased all the way down to someone that has been drinking. A .08 drunk driver has the identical response time as somebody that’s multi-tasking whereas driving.

It has been confirmed that folks that drive with a hand held device are 4 instances more likely to crash and significantly injure themselves. And most of these accidents or wrecks occur to teenagers under the age of two0. Being safe and instructing drivers about distracted driving needs to be the number one most essential parts in driver’s education.

Double check these areas if you find yourself driving to become a safer driver.

You can ignore any calls and text messages when you find yourself driving. Things are usually not really that important. Make certain you’re totally responsive and have had a good quantity of sleep before driving. Refrain from changing your MP3 participant or CD. Strive making a playlist before you leave and listen at a accountable level. If you might be having troubles with your GPS unit, pull over and reconfigure.

Distracted driving might be dangerous. Nothing is extra vital than your safety and the protection of others.

Originally published here.

There are strong public interest grounds for making our roads safer, but on occasions over-zealous enforcement (‘Stunned driver fined for blowing his nose’) have undermined this message.

When it comes to banning handheld mobile phones whilst driving, there does not appear to be much opposition to this. The public has accepted that to drive whilst holding a handheld phone is wrong. One can rationalise this because it would involve removing one hand from the steering wheel. Surely that is the whole point of why phone calls in the car should be hands free?

Years ago, I was given a lift by a taxi driver who only had one hand. He was driving an automatic car and had the steering wheel adapted so that he could turn it the full 360 degrees. He was a perfectly safe driver. The act of driving requires not only the physical skill to do so (and my taxi driver had that), but it also requires the appropriate level of concentration.

It is being distracted from the task at hand that can lead to devastating consequences. There is a misconception amongst some members of the public that using a hands-free phone whilst driving is not only ‘legal’ but also ‘safe’.

This is simply not true. The University of Utah undertook a three year investigation into the effects on drivers of talking on mobile phones. The following headline said it all: ‘Drivers on Cell Phones Are as Bad as Drunks’. Talking on the phone affected 97.5% of all drivers tested. Moreover, what was startling was that there was no significant difference to the level of impairment when the call was ‘hands free’ rather than ‘hand held’.

Where bad driving occurs, the police will investigate and will seek advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over appropriate charges. The official line from CPS is ‘The responses to our 2007 public consultation have shown how seriously society views the potential dangers of the use of mobile phones and other hand-held devices, while driving. In cases where the driver was avoidably and dangerously distracted by that use, a charge of dangerous driving will be the starting point for our charging decisions’.

It is important to note that this guidance is not just for handheld phone cases. In 2008 Marvyn Richmond was jailed for four-and-a-half years for causing death by dangerous driving. He was using a hands-free telephone at the time but was so engrossed in a conversation that he failed to notice traffic ahead of him had come to a standstill, and ploughed into the back of the queue, killing a passenger in a van.

During his summing up to the jury, the judge said the fact that Mr Richmond probably had both hands on the wheel did not alter the fact that he was severely distracted by talking on his Bluetooth headset.

It is not alleged that to use a hands-free mobile phone is per se illegal. It is not but your attention must be focused on driving, just as it should be if you have the radio on or you have a Sat Nav or you have passengers in your vehicle.

A Fleet News poll following the 2009 TRL research revealed 45% of fleets had banned their drivers from using hands-free phones. So, whilst attitudes are changing, more needs to be done to debate the need even for hands-free calls at all.

Originally published here.