Welcome to the Distracted Driving Summit!

We’re here today to deal with a very, very serious problem.

To put it plainly, distracted driving is a menace to society. And it seems to be getting worse every year.

This trend distresses me deeply, both on a personal level, and as the nation’s chief executive for transportation safety.

So today, we’re kicking off a two-day summit that’s going to look at this deadly epidemic from every angle.

We’re bringing together top experts in safety, transportation research, regulatory affairs, and law enforcement to help us identify, target, and tackle the fundamental elements of this problem.

We're including a panel of teens and young adults because this obviously affects them, and their perspective and ideas are important to changing the behavior of their peers.

This morning, I met with several men and women who have suffered as a result of accidents caused by distracted driving. These are people, not statistics. And I'm so proud of them for participating in today's summit, sharing their stories, and reminding everyone how much is at stake here, how much can be lost when a driver's attention is distracted for even a second.

I'm just really looking forward to this summit and the wide ranging expertise of our panelists.

The media have done a great job of raising awareness of the valuable work we're trying to do here. We've got our own team live-blogging the events as they happen on this page. We've got a live webcast that will feature not only a video/audio stream but the speakers' slides as well. And that same webcast allows people from all over the country to submit questions to our experts.

It's an extraordinary coming together, but it's an extraordinarily serious epidemic. Let's all buckle up and get ready to do something about it together.

Comments

[J. Galen Eby]

As a California resident, I witnessed a brief period of compliance with last year's hands-free legislation that has mostly gone by the wayside as law enforcement agencies appear to have lost interest in enforcing the new (watered down, toothless) regs. Today, most drivers seem to simply ignore CA's current hands-free and no-texting laws, except for maybe ADDING the distraction of keeping an eye out for the cops! I think it's safe to say we're essentially talking about ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR on a scale so grand that no amount of regulation can succeed in controlling it. As it is, we're getting mixed messages from our government. A story about the problem in last week's L.A. Times stated: "At least 22 states that ban texting while driving offer some type of service that allows motorists to get information about traffic tie-ups, road conditions or emergencies via Twitter". Perhaps it's time to shift part of the responsibility to the communications industry which markets products that ever-increasingly invite behavior that clearly endangers the public. The GPS capabilities of today's mobile devices make it fairly easy to add software/firmware that prevents making or receiving phone calls, text messages and emails while the device is moving faster than a given speed... let's say 5 MPH. I did a little Googling and sure enough, a Vancouver company called Aegis Mobility markets a product called Drive Assist that does exactly that, along with logging incoming calls/messages and issuing an outgoing message that the user can't safely respond. There must be many others; Aegis is just the first one I happened to encounter. Fortunately, in this case technology can fix the problem technology has created. Please consider doing something that will actually WORK. Cheers, J. Eby (Pasadena, CA)

[Kathleen wells]

Please consider fighting to pass Jason's Law Bill H.R. 2156. This will provide safe rest areas for truck drivers who will be just as distracted from lack of Federally mandated rest, as motorists are using cell phones. Trucking have a right to be protected and not be treated like expendable citizens.

H.R. 2156 will strengthen infrastructure and needs very little funding compared to other spending bills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jL3gtrcF8

Thank You,

Kathleen Wells

[Michael E. Bailey]

This is a serious problem across all transportation lines. There was an engineer of a coal train several years ago that was using a cell phone and had an accident. There was the Metrolink engineer in southern California last year that had a fatal accident while using the cell phone. And I saw bus drivers at OCTA using their cell phones while driving the buses but that has ended now both because of the new California cell phone law and because of vedio taping that goes on inside all fixed route and paratransit buses at OCTA now. Best wishes, Michael E. Bailey.

[Distracted Driver]

Let's hope that the attention being paid to distracted driving doesn't end after this week!

[Cat Jarritt]

With around 25% of all police-reported crashes involving distractions of some sort or another, this couldn't have come sooner.

Driver distractions or inattentive driving play a part in one out of every four motor vehicle crashes. That's more than 1.5 million collisions a year - more than 4,300 crashes each day!

[Harrison Code Voucher]

With around 25% of all police-reported crashes involving distractions of some sort or another, this couldn't have come sooner. Discount Vouchers

[Julian Code]

In the UK you are not allowed to use a mobile phone whilst driving becuase it is a big distracted. Why are drivers in the USA still allowed to use their cell phone?

[Sean L]

I have to agree with Julian in the comment above. It is very strange for Americans to be allowed to use phones when driving. In the UK we are told that drivers are more distracted than if they were drunk, if they are using the phone whilst driving.

[Nick Vouchers]

Unless harsher penalties are put into place that prevent drivers from using distractions that include cellphones, smoking, and even eating at the wheel there will continue to be preventable accidents on our roads and highways.

Regarding truckers, there definitely should be something in place to protect them from tiredness. A friend of mine had their dad needlessly killed around 10 years ago by a lorry driver in the UK who fell asleep on a motorway, crashing into a roadside recovery vehicle and a parked car. It was totally preventable, but just needed the right processes and laws to be in place.

I can remember occassions when I've been tired at the wheel, but I always pull over to have a rest to make sure I will not be a danger to others on the road. Although I am office-based now, running http://www.latestdiscountvouchers.co.uk, whenever I do drive I never answer my phone and simply pick up the messages later. As well as being nice to have a bit of quiet time, listen to radio/music etc., I really don't want to be talking on the phone and driving as it simply doesn't feel safe.

Being safe on the roads is mostly about common sense, but not enough of us are aware of the dangers that our actions may cause others whilst driving.