Distraction Turns To Tragedy

Motorcyclist Fatally Struck by Car; Cops Say Other Driver Painting Nails

That was the headline in our local paper Sunday morning after a tragic accident the day before. The outrage continues to pour in, especially when it appears the nail-painting driver will only be charged with “failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident.”

My guess is there will be additional fines and litigation against the offending driver. Yet I suppose the most painful sentence for her will be living with the result of her lack of attention. One comment on a discussion board mentioned the driver is a nurse: someone who helps save lives. In a split second, for no good reason, she ended one.

The discussion boards on local news sites are filled with “lock her up for life!” sort of judgments. My first reaction to the tragedy was similar: “What a loser! Painting her nails?”

And yet I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of Jesus’ comments about someone who had obviously made a mistake as well: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

How often will I text someone (while I’m driving) that I’m running a couple minutes late? Or scroll through a list of names to make a call? Or twirl the selector on my iPod to find the podcast I want to listen to? Or eat? Or review some notes before a meeting? Or shave?

Or [fill in the blank]? The answer: too often.

I’ve posted about attention and distraction a number of times and discussed it on my podcast with the author of The Myth of Multitasking. We are a culture of distracted multitaskers. The data clearly indicate it’s not just the phone or iPod or nail polishing that impairs our driving. Reaching across the car to grab a bottle of water can make the difference between stopping now or a half-second too late.

I understand that many of us fancy ourselves as great multitaskers, and certainly some seem better than others. But brain science increasingly makes it clear that we are fooling ourselves: “To put it bluntly, research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously,” says Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules. He goes on:

“Cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes in emergencies, slower to return to normal speed after an emergency, and more wild in their ‘following distance’ behind the vehicle in front of them. In a half-second, a driver going 70 mph travels 51 feet. Given that 80% of crashes happen within three seconds of some kind of driver distraction, increasing your amount of task-switching increases your risk of an accident. More than 50% of the visual cues spotted by attentive drivers are missed by cell-phone talkers. Not surprisingly, they get in more wrecks than anyone except very drunk drivers.”

This isn’t just an issue on the road. People are distracted by e-mail in meetings. Managers try to draft something on their computer while having a one-on-one with a staff member. Noises from a cubicle next door make it difficult to focus on your work. Thankfully the results are not typically as tragic as someone dying, but there is a toll nonetheless.

Our local paper’s editorial board had a good response this morning: “Don’t _____ and Drive”

That’s good advice for the road. And it can be a good reminder for us all to manage our distractions more aggressively as we go through our day today.

P.S. As I was finishing this post up this morning, my 12-year old son wanted to talk. I found myself bouncing between the conversation and this post. How ironic. I had to turn away from the keyboard and focus on him. Otherwise the likelihood of him feeling I wasn’t listening (and a typo showing up in this post) would have dramatically risen. Here’s to less distractions in your day today!