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Despite Bans, Many Still Text While Driving
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State and local police wrote more than 6,000 tickets for drivers who were texting behind the wheel last year. That's more than five times the number they wrote in the first year of the ban back in 2011.
We've all seen people text and drive. Maybe you even do it yourself. But, the technology is here to say, and it's not just texting — it's GPS apps, email, Waze — all the incredibly useful things your smartphone helps you do while you're in the car.
That's a big problem. Distracted driving accounts for nearly one in five crashes in the U.S.
So, how do we change what's now become a very common driving behavior?
Guests
Emily Stein, president of the Safe Roads Alliance whose father was killed in 2011 by a 17-year-old trying to set a GPS while driving. She tweets @emstein30 and @Safe_Roads.
Earl Miller, Picower professor of neuroscience at MIT. He tweets @MillerLabMIT.
More
The Boston Globe: Mass. Drivers Getting More Tickets For Texting While Driving
- "While enforcement has gone up overall, it is not uniform across the state. Over the six-year period, no tickets were handed out by local or State Police in 40 Massachusetts communities, mostly smaller ones in the western part of the state."
WBUR: Road Safety Advocates Take Remembrance Bike Ride To State House
- "So many people don’t seem to be educated on what distracted driving is. They say, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, texting is illegal, but I just check my phone every now and then.’ They don’t understand the addiction behind it. We are all addicted to our cellphones. We’re addicted to being connected."
WBUR: The Perils And Evolving Promise Of Multitasking
- "The myth of multitasking is believing that we can think about several things at once...(T)hat’s an illusion, analogous to how drunk people think they’re good drivers. What the brain is really doing is switching from task to task. And every time you switch, and think about a new thing, your brain stumbles a little bit. That slows you down and keeps you from thinking deeper thoughts."
End Distracted Driving: Release Of 'Just A Few Seconds' Video
- "Howard Stein, 61 years old, was soon to be a grandfather; his daughter Emily, a 31 year old nurse, also featured in the video, was newly married and 6 months pregnant at the time of her father’s death."
This segment aired on May 16, 2016.