The Minnesota road death numbers for 2010 continue to be dissected. The hope is that the more we learn the less deaths there will be in the future. One area that has to be looked at is driver distraction.
As the Alexandria Echo Press recently looked at:
In 2010, there were 74,073 vehicle crashes in Minnesota. The crashes resulted in 411 fatalities and 31,176 injuries – 1,191 of which were severe.
The fatalities were a combination of motorists (305); motorcyclists (45); pedestrians (36); bicyclists (9); ATV riders (8); moped riders (3); snowmobiles (3) and farm equipment occupants (2).
The most common factor in these crashes (in order of frequency) was – driver inattention/distraction, failure to yield right of way, and illegal or unsafe speed.
According to Sergeant Jesse Grabow, State Patrol public safety information officer from this area, one out of every four crashes involved distracted driving – such as texting, talking and eating.
“A distracted driving law went into effect in August of 2008 banning texting, e-mailing and Web usage while driving,” said Grabow. “However, it is still a very difficult law to enforce.”
Keep in mind these are cases where the at fault driver admits to doing something else or it can be shown. There is still a percentage of cases where the distracted driver conceals the facts.
All of this is evidence that we really need to keep a better lookout. These are collisions that really shouldn’t be taking place. Also if you are in an accident , make sure to look around or ask "what were you doing?"
