It seems that the rate of car accidents seems to increase, decrease, then increase again! Looking over the years, there still seems to be a steady rate of accidents. And if you go out on the road, there are still so many drivers out there who go on with a flagrant disregard for everybody else. What is the root cause of this? There is a case to be made for technology. Technology appears to be ruining our driving skills, but it’s also making us stupider on the road. What can we do to overcome this?
Remove Your Phone
This is, naturally, the first place we go when we think of technology in the car. Because distracted driving is one of the biggest culprits now, resulting in so many variations of a personal injury accident, from collisions with other cars, to knocking bikers off the road, putting your phone somewhere where you cannot see it, so there is no temptation to look at it, is common sense. However, we still continue to look at our phones, even when it’s been made illegal! You still see drivers texting while driving, or talking on the phone, so their attention is not on the car in front of them. This results in a lot more rear-end collisions.
Don’t Rely On The Gps
You put the zip code into the GPS, and it takes you there. It seems that all you have to do is listen to the directions, but we’ve all been there when we’ve lost our bearings, or the GPS has led us up the garden path. It seems that now, drivers don’t have an inherent knowledge of where they’re going. It’s far better to prepare a long journey by looking at the route, rather than getting lost and anxious due to mishearing the GPS directions. Not only this, but have you ever found yourself struggling to make sense of what the GPS is telling you, resulting in you taking your attention off the road? Some people argue that they couldn’t live without their GPS, but is that because they are relying on it to get them anywhere, rather than the driver following their instincts, or building up a better mental map of the journey?
Improve Your Own Natural Driving Skills
The one way to really solve these issues is to prove your own natural ability behind the wheel. Now, because of cruise control, or lane assist functions, we feel that we can do a lot less behind the wheel. Instead, switch all the confusing functions off, and rely on your own instincts behind the wheel. You may have a pleasant surprise, or a major shock.
Do you think that tech is ruining your driving, or do you think it’s helping you? In the United Kingdom, being able to operate a GPS is part of the driving test now. And while this highlights the landscape in which we do drive, this still shows that we are becoming more reliant on technology to do the job for us. In actual fact, it’s much safer for us, and everyone else, to embrace our natural driving skills, rather than rely on tech.