Distracted Driving, an Unexpected View

By Art Liggio, President, Driving Dynamics

This is national distracted driving awareness month, and I’m thrilled to announce that this is the one millionth article written on the topic. To commemorate this annual campaign, let’s strive to reach an all-time high this month in the number of drivers distracted at any single moment.

Wait, Huh? What in the world?

OK, I’ve taken some literary license with the introduction but, hopefully, I got your attention and provided a clue we’re going to look at things from an unexpected view. Of course I don’t really want the number of distracted drivers to go up this month, or ever. And maybe this isn’t the one millionth distracted driving article, although it may feel that way. But stay with me, there is a point to this—and it has to do with detouring from the status quo and using a bit of reverse psychology to help lower crashes related to distracted driving.

During the past decade, a collective approach for reducing crashes has been essentially to scold or persistently urge drivers, to the point of annoyance, about why they should not drive while distracted. In other words: nag, nag, and nag. Now, nagging to effect change has been a go-to method used throughout history by parents, spouses, the press, and government regulators. And as crashes caused by distracted driving have reached epidemic levels, fleet management has also now become a prolific practitioner of nag-o-nomics, if you will, as a tool to deter distracting behaviors by their drivers.

We serve up tons of statistics to quantify the dangers, present well-cited articles written by safety pros on the evils of distracted driving, tell real-life horror stories designed to scare ’em straight, and, in some cases dangle the threat of job-related penalties for getting caught while driving distracted. All of this, but yet here we still are. It doesn’t seem to be working so well, does it?

So instead of going straight down that same old road, let’s make a left turn. In other words: stop being a nag about the wrong, risky or dangerous habits in which your drivers may be engaging. In this new paradigm, your drivers are not the problem; it’s all those “other people” driving distracted, with whom they have to share the road, that has you so worried. These other people are thoughtless, careless and inconsiderate, they take too many unnecessary chances and cannot be trusted to do the right thing, and their actions are endangering your drivers.

To give you an idea of what you’re up against, at any given moment more than 660,000 drivers are actively distracted by use of cell phones (not yours of course), and this one statistic is just the tip of the iceberg. And now that it’s clear your drivers are part of the solution and not willful participants, you can rely on them to help mitigate this huge problem.

While we can’t control the “other driver’s” actions, each person in your fleet can be empowered to stay alert to these common traits shared by those distracted types and be ready to steer clear of anyone that may be placing them in harm’s way.

Traveling significantly faster or slower than the speed limit or flow of traffic
Needlessly changing speeds
Stopping longer than necessary at red lights or stop signs
Not maintaining lane position
Drifting or swerving from lane
Braking suddenly in reaction to normal traffic stops
Running red lights or stop signs
Following too closely
Seat dancing (to the music)
Tilting head down instead of looking ahead

Next, based on this vigilance and monitoring, encourage your drivers to share relevant anecdotal details they’ve observed which may resonant in meaningful ways with the rest of the fleet. This peer-to-peer sharing of powerful safety messages and experiences is a potent and effective approach for collective revelation and learning—that’s likely better received with an open mind than one that’s perceived as just more nagging by management.

Go ahead; try an unexpected view toward combating distracted driving. It may be the thing that gets your drivers’ attention regarding this very serious issue, changes attitudes and helps you to better assure their safety and well-being behind-the-wheel.

Safety & Risk is presented by Driving Dynamics an accomplished provider of impactful driver safety training and risk management services. Continually building and delivering programs based on sound research, proven learning methodologies and expert instruction, we are dedicated to improving drivers’ abilities to stay safe by leveraging risk management tools, principle-based learning and applied techniques. The One Second Advantage™ safety training principle developed by Driving Dynamics is rooted in research that shows 90 percent of all traffic crashes can be avoided when the driver has just one more second to react and knows what to do with that additional second. Driving Dynamics encourages all drivers to Steer Toward Safety™

Website: http://ift.tt/1E9SEzT; Email: staysafe@drivingdynamics.com; Newsletter: http://ift.tt/1WAXiik

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