It’s the most wonderful time of the year, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and we’re all decking the halls and waiting for jolly old Saint Nick. Song titles aside, it’s December. Here comes the time of year when our schedules go completely crazy, between kids’ winter concerts and recitals, work Christmas parties, putting up trees, and burning through our gift lists (and credit card limits) as fast as our merry little fingertips will go. We all have a lot on our minds, which is why Fairfax County recently posted an item on distracted driving, and texting while driving specifically.
As you probably know, it’s illegal to text and drive in Virginia. That’s not enough to stop many multitaskers, however. The county says that a full 29 percent - almost a third - of 35,000 car crashes in Fairfax this year were due to distracted driving. In this case, “distracted driving” can refer to checking one’s lipstick in the rearview mirror, fiddling with the radio, craning around to discipline the kids, or any other manner of taking one’s attention off the road. Yet, anecdotally, the lion’s share of these incidents have to do with using a phone while driving. During 2016, 13,000 people received citations for texting while driving. That’s a lot of preoccupied drivers on the road. National numbers are even greater: at any given daytime minute, some 660,000 people are believed to be using a cell phone or other electronic device while operating a motor vehicle.
The county says: “The holiday season brings additional distractions that may affect your driving and a good time to remind everyone to put your phone down and don’t text, swipe or like while driving.” In Virginia, messing with your phone while behind the wheel is a primary offense, meaning that law enforcement can pull you over if they see you fiddling with your phone on the road. The biggest offenders flouting texting/driving laws, not surprisingly, are young drivers under the age of 18. The state has enforced a number of laws designed to help keep new drivers safe, including a limit on how many passengers under 21 may be in the car at a given time, and a curfew of midnight for underage drivers. Even with these restrictions in place, parents would do well to review the dangers of distracted driving with their teens, and have a family discussion on driver safety.
Nobody wants a tragedy in the family at any point, but especially right before Christmas. For your own and your family’s sake (as well as the families of everyone else on the road with you), stay off the phone while driving these next few weeks. It’s important during all times of year, but never so much as during the holidays, when we have plenty of other things to draw our attention away from driving.
