Pay Attention! April Is Distracted Driving Awareness Month

CARS.COM — On a recent drive up to the mountains, the car in front of us was swerving all over the road as if the driver were attempting an automotive interpretation of modern dance. We were a little scared to pass him, lest he drift into us. My husband immediately pegged him as drunk, but when I stepped on the gas and swiftly floored it past him, we saw that he had his phone held up in front of his face with one hand — and with the other, he was doing a dismal job of steering.

Related: This Is Your Brain on Apps: The Distracted Driving Dilemma

We all know this isn’t a rarity. Heck, some of us are even guilty of similar behaviors ourselves. But it’s not good. April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month — also known as a perfect time start ditching bad habits and begin paying more attention to the road.

According to the National Safety Council, 47 percent of people are comfortable texting while driving. And researchers at Life360, whose app helps families keep track of one another, recently reviewed millions of drives by users and found that a cell phone was used on average 1.78 times during each trip. That may not sound like much, but when you consider that only once is enough to create great danger, it’s plenty.

Life360 discovered that drivers in the Southeastern U.S. are the biggest offenders when it comes to using cell phones while driving. We’re looking at you Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama: Placing 1st, 2nd and 3rd in this race merits no boasting. Get off your phones — there’s no Southern charm in being reckless.

Teens, Stop Texting!

There’s nothing charming about teenagers using their phones while driving, either. And yet, they do: Despite the fact that a study by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Students Against Destructive Decisions found that 95 percent of licensed teen drivers believe texting while driving is dangerous, 27 percent still admitted doing it.

The same study also found that a whopping 68 percent say they use apps while driving. Ummm, teens? You’re contradicting yourselves. Please stop. Parents, Distracted Driving Awareness Month seems like a great time to have a chat with your teens about safe driving.

However, the world is nothing if not paradoxical, and we just may be saved from our technologically distracted driving habits by technology itself. Axel Nix, senior director of advanced driver assistance systems at Harman International, said: “Distracted driving is becoming a major issue for roadway safety, which is why Harman takes human behavior into consideration when developing ADAS technology.”

Tech Solutions

Emerging technologies like augmented reality and voice assistants help Harman and other companies create vehicle features that keep driver distraction to a minimum. Imagine things like individual sound zones — in which drivers only hear what they need to, when they need to — or augmented reality projection systems that display navigation information onto a full windshield head-up display. These types of features can help keep drivers’ minds and eyes on the road.

On a somewhat simpler scale, Life360 has a new in-app service called Life360 Driver Protect that helps people become safer drivers by recording incidences of cell phone use during drives. When you start to see your cell phone usage recorded like that, you just may start to rethink your propensity for texting or updating your status while behind the wheel. (At least, that’s the hope.)

Self-Driving Toward Safety

Finally, some are hoping that self-driving cars may come to their rescue. Erie Insurance, a national provider of auto, home and life insurance, recently conducted a survey of nearly 3,000 licensed U.S. drivers, and found that about 60 percent of them believe self-driving cars will erase the problem of distracted driving.

Not only is this swath of people pining away to be saved by autonomous cars, but they have plenty of plans for how they’ll pass the time should they find themselves in one: Sleeping, texting, playing video games and even engaging in “romantic activities” are among the things folks plan to do when they relinquish the wheel. Given this list, those of us who continue to drive ourselves may be distracted nonetheless — even if we’ve given up our phones while in the car.