Common Causes of Distracted Driving Accidents

Nobody gives a breath test for daydreaming.

A drunk driver blows into a tube, and a number goes in the report. But the driver who was checking a map or fishing a phone off the floorboard when they crossed the center line walks away from the wreck with their own story and nothing on paper to contradict it. Meanwhile, you’re the one in the neck brace.

Texting gets the headlines, but it’s only one of the common causes of distracted driving accidents. If nobody proves what the other driver was doing, the adjuster gets to guess, and the guess tends to blame the weather, the road, or you.

Here is what the visual, manual, and cognitive distractions that cause these crashes leave behind, and how that evidence becomes a Wyoming car accident claim.

Visual Distractions Don’t Stop at the Phone

Ask most people what a visual distraction during driving is, and almost all will say “texting.” That’s true. But people also look at their GPS for an entire exit or turn around to argue with someone in the back seat while doing 70 miles per hour.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a text message can take your eyes off the road for five seconds. If you’re traveling at 55 mph, that’s the length of a football field that you’re driving with your eyes closed. Of course, most people go much faster than 55 on Wyoming highways, so you can do the math yourself at 80 mph.

Or the math works out another way, such as rear-ending someone who was stopped, slowing down on the highway, or crossing into the opposite lane when the road is dry and clear.

If you’re driving while distracted, someone could see your face tilted toward your phone and make a note of it.

Manual Distractions Start With a Reach

We’re supposed to keep our hands on the wheel when we drive, but that’s easier said than done in the real world. Our hands leave the wheel to reach for our morning coffee or a breakfast burrito, or for our sunglasses, or to pet the dog. Most of the time nothing happens, which is why people keep doing it.

A longer reach is when it all can go wrong. For example, the phone slides off the seat. The hands, arms, and shoulders lean toward it, and the driver’s eyes and mind follow. For those few seconds, the vehicle is driving itself. This is how one dropped item can set off all three types of driver distraction at once.

A driver steering with their knee reacts late, and late is how a lane drift turns into a sideswipe or full-on collision. The evidence here is refreshingly physical: the spilled coffee, the phone lying under the brake pedal, and the half-eaten burrito dashed against the passenger-side floorboard.

Accident scene photos will capture all this if somebody thinks to look.

Inattentional Blindness and the Driver Who “Never Saw You”

This is what’s known as cognitive distraction. It is nearly impossible to tell if someone is doing this by looking over at them. You could be driving down the highway thinking about your job. Your eyes are on the road, but your mind is somewhere else.

Scientists call this inattentional blindness. Your eyes see the object, but your brain won’t process that it’s there. That’s why a driver will cut in front of a motorcyclist on sunny days and swear they didn’t see them.

Long, empty roads allow this to happen, and Wyoming is full of long, empty roads.

Even hands-free technology can be dangerous. Many people think that they can use their phone by talking instead of typing. Wyoming distracted driving laws even say talking on the phone while driving is legal. They can also legally talk to their phone hands-free while driving.

However, while you can legally do those things in Wyoming, you shouldn’t.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety proved that using your voice to text can cause you to be more distracted than doing most other tasks they tested. Some studies even show that your brain can stay in a distracted state for up to 27 seconds after using your phone.

So how do you know if someone was distracted?

Proving Driver Negligence Without a Confession

When someone reads their screen or tries to grab something while driving, that is considered careless driving. If they were texting, they are also committing a traffic violation, which would be considered negligence in a civil suit. However, this is only if you can prove that they were.

It’s not like they’re going to admit it. In fact, someone with inattentional blindness at the time of an accident won’t even know what to confess to.

You still can build a distracted driving claim. In the first week after a crash, your attorney will send out a preservation of evidence letter to the other driver’s insurance company, looking for:

• Cell phone records that show a call or a text being made at the time of collision
• The other vehicle’s event data recorder, which saves information such as how fast it was going and whether the brakes were engaged before impact
• Video footage from any surveillance cameras in the area of the accident, including other cars’ dashboard cams

It’s important to get this evidence early because it tends to disappear.

Surveillance cameras overwrite their footage on a schedule. It’s also key to grab witnesses who saw the crash, and to get them on the record while they still remember where the other driver’s eyes were looking.

You need all the evidence and witnesses on your side that you can get, because Wyoming reduces an injured driver’s compensation by the percentage of fault they shared in the crash. For example, if you are found 20 percent at fault in a crash with bills totaling around $40,000, you would only receive $32,000.

Never give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company before speaking with your attorney.

Edwards Law Office, P.C. Knows Where to Look

Five seconds of somebody else’s distraction can put you in a hospital bed, and the proof of those five seconds starts disappearing before you’re discharged. For more than 20 years, Edwards Law Office, P.C. has built injury claims for people across Wyoming, and our attorneys know what to ask for and how fast to ask for it.

If a distracted driver hurt you or a family member, contact our firm for a free consultation.

The sooner we start, the more of the evidence is still out there to find.