Distracted Driving

Over the road truck drivers have a difficult job that involves thousands of hours on the road ever year and keeps them away from their family for extended periods of time.  It is important to keep distractions limited while going down the road. What is the definition of Distracted Driving? Anything that can take your attention away from controlling the vehicle. There are three types of distractions, visual, mental and physical. Which activity do you think involves all three types of distractions? The answer would be texting. The FMCSA prohibits truck drivers from holding, texting, dialing, reading or reaching for a cell phone while driving. Drivers who text and drive are 23 times more likely to be involved in a serious incident. Texting requires drivers, on average, to take their eyes off the road for about 4.6 seconds.

Truck Drivers need to know the risk that goes into texting while driving. Not only can this cause a serious or fatal accident there is also a large fine. When a driver is caught having a hand held device in their hand the penalty is large around 2,700 for the driver and around 10,000 for the company. Seaboard urges our drivers to please have limited usage on hands free devices as they can still be a distraction for a driver. To reduce distracted driving drivers should pre-set their GPS devices and music players before they drive.

When a driver is going down the road they need to be as defensive of a driver as they can be. If a driver notices another distracted driver they should slow down and allow the vehicle to go around them. It is equally important for drivers to know how to recognize distracted driving in themselves as well as others. Ignore distracted drivers so they do not bother you.