What if I could guarantee you a 47 percent improvement in the quality of your daily commute? Yeah, I can’t do that, but it would be great if I could, right? That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for a better drive, especially if you’re a parent or you regularly have kids in the car with you. No, I’m not suggesting you leave them home 47 percent of the time.
My kids are adults now, but I still remember that not every drive with the kids was perfect. Sure, we had plenty of drives that involved singing songs together and talking about our day, but there were also the ones that involved lines like, “Dad, his hands are on my side of the seat. Make him stop!” Followed by, “No they’re not. I’m touching the center part. That’s no man’s land.” This inevitably resulted in both kids putting their hands in “no man’s land” and literal hand-to-hand combat.
Now I don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver, but I do think I can offer a strategy that might help minimize problems from the back seat. Here it is: Talk with your kids about distracted driving. And don’t wait until they’re almost old enough to get their driver license. Do it when they’re young. Let them know how important it is that you pay attention to your driving. Talk with them about what safe driving looks like and give some examples of things that can distract a driver. Distractions include more than phones. It’s anything that takes your hands off the wheel, your eyes off the road or your mind away from driving. Share with them that passengers (like them) can be a distraction. Yes, if you slip up and grab your phone while you’re driving they’re likely to point it out, but that’s okay, because they’re right. Of course they are; you taught them that.
Here’s a great outcome of teaching your kid about distracted driving: When the kids in your car know that some of their behaviors can be distracting, and that avoiding distractions helps keep everyone in the car safer, they may be more inclined to listen when you ask them to stop. Next time they’re throwing paper airplanes at the driver’s face, you can let them know that projectiles inside a vehicle qualify as distractions, and that they’re riding in a distraction-free car. Hopefully that’ll go over better than “because I said so,” or “because you’re bugging me right now.”
More than calming your drive, you’ll all be safer. At any given moment, less than one in ten drivers on the road are distracted. In the most recent observational survey, 93 percent of observed drivers were giving their attention to driving. And yet, about a quarter of all fatal and serious injury crashes in our state involve distraction, suggesting that driving distracted more than triples your chance of a serious crash. And not all distractions are equal; texting increases your risk of crash by as much as 23 times. Getting your kids on your team right now makes your drive safer today, and you’ll set them up for success when they become drivers.
This April law enforcement agencies across Washington will be putting extra emphasis on distracted driving. But don’t let the fear of a ticket be the only reason to put down your phone or that loaded taco. Giving up distractions will improve the quality and safety of your drive, and it sets a good example for everyone else in your car. Some day that example will pay off in the next generation of drivers.
I remember those occasions driving with misbehaving kids in the back seat, half-turned around flailing my hand furiously in an attempt to swat their bare legs amidst horrified screaming (my wife’s). And thus was formed that guttural threat:
“DON’T MAKE ME PULL OVER!!!”