The National Safety Council (NSC) is promoting awareness of the consequences of distracted driving this month with slogans such as “Hands-Free Is Not Risk-Free” and “On the Road, Off the Phone.”

April was formally introduced to the United States as Distracted Driving Awareness Month back in 2010. There have been initiatives across Canada as well, including an RCMP campaign launched in British Columbia this past February. Yet wherever you are and whatever month you choose to review the statistics, they aren’t good. So what can we do, as individuals and employers, to reduce distracted driving?

Understand the Risk

At the time of writing the National Safety Council estimates that in this year alone 325,389 crashes in the United States have involved drivers using cell phones and texting. To put it another way, one crash approximately every 24 seconds.

Texting while driving increases the risk of a crash by 23 times, … Read more...