SLOW DOWN
Leave a 10 minute cushion to reach your destination and plan your route ahead of time.
Shut your phone off while driving—listen to music instead. And breathe.
Practice defensive driving, leave the competition for the playing field.
Don’t drive drunk or high. Ever.
Slow down, what’s the rush?
Is running that red light worth taking a life? Is cutting off that slow driver and causing an accident worth the extra 5 minutes you might gain? In 2019, an estimated 38,800 people lost their lives in car accidents. And, that number doesn’t include the catastrophic injuries that changed lives and families forever. While speeding and alcohol impairment are the leading factors in fatal and serious injury crashes, driving while distracted accounts for more than 9% of fatal crashes according to a 2017 NHTSA study. We all abhor aggressive, impaired and distracted driving, yet we continue to do it.
We are late. We speed past other drivers, cursing their slowness. We change lanes without signalling or checking our mirrors. We glance at our phones to quickly check a text—even though at 55 miles per hour that quick 5 seconds is the equivalent of driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed. Impulsively, we look at our social media feed despite the fact that our reaction time will be slowed down by 38%, which is three times more than drinking and driving—which we’re not even touching on here. Just don’t drive under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Period.
According to research by University of Utah Professor, David Strayer, people are as impaired when they drive and talk on a cell phone as they are when they drive intoxicated at the legal blood-alcohol limit of 0.08%.
Mathematically, speeding might get you there marginally faster. But, the research shows that the higher the speed limit is, the less time you save by exceeding it. And, in traffic, “the hypothetical time savings go out the window”. And multitasking, let’s talk about that big myth. While we may think it’s saving us time, in actuality it’s not. When we do two things at once, we do not accomplish both tasks with optimal effectiveness. In actuality, the science suggests, “the brain handles tasks sequentially, switching between one task and another. Brains can juggle tasks very rapidly, which leads us to erroneously believe we are doing two tasks at the same time. In reality, the brain is switching attention between tasks—performing only one task at a time.” So, in a nutshell, while we’re having a conversation in the car our driving takes the backseat, leaving other drivers vulnerable to our inattention.
The reality is, the road is a shared space. And in communal spaces we operate for the good of the community. On roads and highways, that means letting go of our individual needs—to get there faster, accomplish more in our day, or teach that other driver a lesson. Instead, try and enjoy the ride, indulge in being present in the moment and pride yourself in belonging to something bigger than yourself. Tune into your surroundings, open your eyes to others on the road. What you see might surprise you.