More than 3,450 people lost their lives in 2016 and thousands more across the United States were seriously injured as a result of distracted driving accidents. This includes talking and texting on a cellphone while behind the wheel. Yet people in Connecticut and throughout the country continue to engage in this deadly activity. If simply talking or texting on a cellphone while driving isn’t enough, drivers who take selfies of themselves while behind the wheel act as an even greater risk to pedestrians, bicyclists and everyone else on the road. People risk their lives and the lives of others in order to take a pic and upload it to their profile.
Taking a selfie while driving requires motorists to remove their hands from the steering wheel to hold the phone in the right position to take the perfect picture. Furthermore, drivers must take their eyes off the road to set up the picture and push the right prompts to engage the camera setting on the phone. Lastly, while the brain is concentrating on taking a picture, it is unable to focus on the road and other driving hazards. Taking selfies and uploading them to social media websites while driving involves manual, visual and cognitive distractions.
Social media shows that there are thousands of people across the nation that take selfies while they are driving. Instagram alone has more than 1,869 posts under #drivingselfies and 3,727 under #drivingselfie. Still more than 9,700 posts exist under #drivingtowork. Rather than posting pictures and using social media, motorists should keep their focus on driving and only use their cellphones once they are off of the road.
