Top Driver Distractions

Video Transcript:

Cindy Speaker: Something that has always been a significant cause of auto accidents is driver distraction.  My guess today is South Carolina attorney, George Sink and he is going to talk with us about this topic.  So George, welcome and thanks for coming today.

George Sink: Well, thank you for having me, Cindy.

Cindy Speaker: Well, I want to pick your brain today and the first thing I want to ask you is what are the different ways that drivers get distracted?

George Sink: Well, Cindy, I think there are about three—visual, that’s taking your eyes off the road; manual, taking your hands off the wheel and cognitive, taking your mind off what you’re doing.  There’s a lot of trouble with various things from CDs to tobacco, eating and then we know about the cell phones don’t we because I was just looking at our legislative agenda for South Carolina in 2010 and it looks like there are seven bills being introduced in our state legislature to curb texting with fines from as low as $25.00 to up to DIU type of punishments—some pretty severe punishments to prevent distracted driving.

Cindy: Wow, now is that specific to South Carolina?

George Sink: Yes, but I think across the nation, everyone is recognizing these problems.  Using a cell phone while driving delays the driver’s reaction as much as blood alcohol level of 0.08% which is our DIU level in South Carolina.

Cindy Speaker: Is this something that now is on your radar that if someone is in an accident and you’re representing someone that may be was rear-ended or whatever, do you routinely check phone records?

George Sink: Oh absolutely!  Everyone can relate to being damaged, hurt or upset by a distracted driver and I think that ranks very high on a juror’s attention scale, so we pay a lot of attention to that.  Eighty percent for example of all crashes involve some kind of distraction, so it has a tremendous effect on younger drivers, which we know are higher risk drivers than middle aged drivers are the second highest risk area, so our young people who are out on those highways texting, talking and—it really is increasing dramatically the rates of collisions due to this distracting driving issue.  It’s something we’re all aware of now and we all need to take some steps to handle.

Cindy Speaker: Right, right!  And in speaking about that, let’s talk a little bit about safeguards.  How can we protect ourselves from the worst drivers, the distracted drivers and secondly, what steps should we have in our minds so that we’re not a distracted driver?

George Sink: I think you have to double your alertness and just keep your eyes open for this new type of danger that could result in damage to you, your loved ones, your family, without any fault of your own, so high alert level is probably your only defense.

Cindy Speaker: Well, George, I thank you so much for your time today.

George Sink: Well, thank you Cindy

Cindy Speaker: Until next time, this is Cindy Speaker for State Law TV.