Preventing Charlotte Distracted Driving Accidents
Safe Phone Zones are one proposal that could perhaps help reduce the number of distracted driving accidents throughout Charlotte. Safe Phone Zones are strategically located on highways and make it easy for drivers to pull over and access their phones. These safe areas are at rest areas and other safe places along the highway.
The goal of Safe Phone Zones is to encourage drivers to pull off the road before trying to use their phone. Motorists who use rest areas reportedly have reduced the number of nationwide motor vehicle accidents by 37.3 percent, providing a $148 million net benefit to society because there are no lost wages, medical expenses, or other costs. A personal injury lawyer knows that approaches like Safe Phone Zones recognize that people are always going to want to talk or text while driving and try to make it safer and easier to do that rather than fighting against people’s nature.
How to Prevent Charlotte Distracted Driving Accidents
Public education and law enforcement crackdowns are two other approaches to take to try to prevent distracted driving accidents in Charlotte and throughout the country. Both of these approaches are part of National Distracted Driving Month, which takes place in April.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that this year’s campaign is called U Drive. U. Text. U Pay. As part of the campaign, motorists will be provided with public service announcements and public information about risks associated with texting and other distracted driving behaviors. Police will also be aggressively patrolling and issuing citations to motorists who violate laws prohibiting texting or limiting other electronic device use.
When there are national campaigns like this one, it falls to local law enforcement to actually do the enforcing part of the campaign. Unfortunately, Politico writes that this may be an issue since there is not enough money being made available in most situations to pay for enough police to do the necessary additional enforcement.
The Governors’ Highway Safety Association (GHSA) has lamented that without the funding to step up enforcement, the campaign ends up being “all bark and no bite,” and thus does not reinforce to motorists the message that texting behind the wheel is likely to lead to a ticket, citation, and fine.
There are also ongoing concerns about whether states have enough direction, and enough federal money, to effectively enforce distracted driving rules under the new Grow America plan that has been put forth by the Obama Administration. There are strict and narrow rules that are used to determine if states get money for distracted driving enforcement and the GHSA believes that Grow America should do more to address these regulations.
Enforcing distracted driving laws and preventing distracted driving can be complicated because of driver resistance and because there are different approaches to take. Drivers ultimately have the responsibility to take the simplest step to prevent distracted driving: don’t use your phone or pay attention to anything other than the road.