What is Distracted Driving
Distracted driving is when someone drives with their focus on something other than the road. Distracted driving is also when you divide your attention between the road and something else. The most common forms of distracted driving are:
- Texting and driving
- Calling someone will driving
- Looking away from the road while driving
- Sleeping on the wheel
Although there are a few more variations of distracted, these are the most common forms of distracted driving. Although it doesn’t seem harmful since it is just a few seconds, just a few seconds of distracted driving can become the cause of a fatal car accident.
Texting and Driving is Illegal in the Florida
On July 1, 2019 the state of Florida made it illegal to text and drive. Having your phone in your hand is enough to have a cop stop you and cite you.
Although it seems harmless at first because it’s only a few seconds, there are numbers to back up that taking your eyes off for even a few seconds can have devastating consequences.
According to FHSMV, (if you’re driving at 20mph) to perceive (or notice) a vehicle, there needs to be 22 feet. To REACT to the perceived vehicle, there needs to be another 22 feet, and then 25 feet to brake the car safely.
This is about a quarter of a football field. When you are driving at 40mph, you need double the distance to perceive, double the reaction distance, and ten times the distance to brake in time. Basically, you need half a football field to properly brake.
Other Forms of Distracted Driving
Texting and driving is the most common form of distracted driving. You just want to answer that text from your loved one. Maybe it’s about the plans for this evening. All that can wait when you are driving. Remember that just for a few seconds of texting, you may possibly lose tens of thousands of dollars or possibly even your life.
Other forms of distracted driving like calling while driving, dozing off while driving, looking away from the road while driving, hold the same consequences.
How To Prevent Distracted Driving
The best way is to just focus on driving.
Just because an action did not have negative consequences doesn’t mean it is correct. You just got lucky.
For example, if you play in busy traffic but don’t get hurt, it doesn’t mean that what you did was right, it is still wrong and very dangerous. You just got lucky for that moment.
Distracted driving is especially dangerous in the roads of Fort Lauderdale. With so many cars and Fort Lauderdale being notorious for having careless drivers during rush hour, an accident is almost guaranteed if you are driving distracted.
Contacting a Car Accident Lawyer in Fort Lauderdale
At FLL Accident Lawyers, our team is focused on you. Customer satisfaction and making sure that you are back to living your life as you want is our goal.
If you or a loved one is a victim of a car accident that was caused by someone else’s distracted driving, give us a call.
With decades of experience under our belt and hundreds of cases for our clients, we have utmost confidence that we can help you get financial compensation for the personal injuries that were caused at the hands of someone else’s distracted driving.
We offer free consultation to hear what happened to you. From there, once we feel like we can provide value, our team will start gathering evidence and photos to build you a strong case.
Remember, we don’t win until YOU win.