Montgomery County Hopes to Attract Attention of Drivers During ‘National Distracted Driving Month’

Montgomery County Hopes to Attract Attention of Drivers During ‘National Distracted Driving Month’ 

Montgomery County, which has been actively trying to reduce the number of serious and fatal traffic incidents through its Vision Zero Initiative, will be focusing on inattentive drivers in April as it joins the annual national recognition of April as “National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.” The special month is sponsored by the National Safety Council. Montgomery County’s Vision Zero Initiative has sought to reduce traffic deaths through programs implemented by its Department of Transportation, Police Department, Fire and Rescue Service, Planning Department, CountyStat program, Recreation Department, Public Information Office and Montgomery County Public schools. Distracted driving, along with pedestrians and bicyclists also not putting full attention toward their actions, is one of the major causes cited for collisions. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), between 2012-17, nearly 20,000 nationally people died in crashes involving a distracted driver. Distracted driving—whether due to using cellphones, changing radio stations, wearing headphones that block important sounds or eating while driving—is becoming an increasing issue around the nation. Among those in the greatest danger are public safety and highway construction employees who are vulnerable on the sides of roads trying to do their jobs. “Distracted driving is putting motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists in danger and we are going to use every means possible to make our roads safer,” said Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich.  “For starters, we will continue to work hard to make drivers put away their cell phones. We also need to take other actions to make people drive safely. We want to lower speed limits in certain areas, design safer streets, create incentives not to cross a street without being in a crosswalk and decrease the number of impaired drivers. We need to simply stop distracted driving, but we also must have drivers slow down so we can lessen the effects if there is a collision.” According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety Research, drivers who text are up to eight times as likely to be involved in a crash. Five seconds is the average time a distracted driver’s eyes are off the road while texting. At 55 mph, that is equivalent to blindly driving the entire length of a football field. Drivers talking on a cellphone are up to four times as likely to be in a crash. Hands-free, voice-based technology still causes distractions as drivers can be mentally distracted for as long as 27 seconds after using voice-based technology to dial, change music or send a text message. More information on distracted driving research can be found on the National Safety Council website at https://www.nsc.org/road-safety/safety-topics/distracted-driving/research.