RAC wants to know just
what's driving us to distraction
From The West Australian
By Jamie Fitzgerald
February 18, 2006
Applying make-up,
brushing hair, gazing at scantily clad females on billboards and drinking
hot coffee from drive-through beverage outlets are some of the modern
distractions reported by motorists responding to an RAC survey on
driver concentration – and these are just the ones people have
owned up to.
The RAC has called on drivers
to create a snapshot of distractions facing drivers. Rather than making
our lives more streamlined and less complicated, technology is among
the chief of concentration reported.
It may be illegal for television
screens playing DVDs to be in view of the driver of the vehicle they
are fitted in, but one motorist reported almost crashing because he
was busy watching the screen in the car in front.
RAC membership general manager
Mark white said the results of the survey could help shape the body’s
policies on road safety in the future. “It is ironic that things
like signage and car technology like alarms and alerts, though they
have significant safety benefits, can also contribute to the problem
by being distractions,” he said.
Mobile telephones, flashing
neon signs and scanning the roadside for speed cameras were among
other reported distractions.
