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With the weather and holiday traveling involved in the holiday season, it’s especially important that we pay attention to the road and be careful not to get distracted while driving. By looking at hashtags on picture posts to social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, AAA determined that the latest “distracted driving behavior” is drivers taking pictures or video while driving. Last month, the Huffington Post reported that there were over 3,000,000 pictures on Instagram with hashtags indicating that they were taken while driving. This is becoming such a common occurrence that recently, AAA issued a press release reminding drivers to not take videos or pictures of themselves (“selfies”) or anything else while driving.
AAA’s press release explains how dangerous taking pictures can be by illustrating how far a car can travel in the time it takes to take a picture. For example, in the two seconds drivers have their eyes off the road to take a picture, the car travels the length of about two basketball courts or half a football or soccer field. It then goes on to explain that with self videos this increases to 5.5 to 14 basketball court lengths.
With the increased distracted driving awareness campaigns, people should know that or taking pictures, videos, or texting and driving create an unacceptable danger of RI car accidents. Time stated, and I agree, that this “should have been the most unnecessary press release of all time.” But as a RI personal injury lawyer I see every day how important it is to keep drivers reminded to always stay focused on driving.