{"id":125634,"date":"2015-05-07T13:01:24","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T11:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=125634"},"modified":"2015-05-07T13:02:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T11:02:43","slug":"put-down-that-phone-while-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/125634-put-down-that-phone-while-driving.html","title":{"rendered":"Put down that phone while driving"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa has one of the highest road accident rates in the world, with\u00a0around 25% of those\u00a0accidents caused by cellphone use while driving.<\/p>\n

According to the International Transport Forum\u2019s 2013 Road Safety Annual Report, South Africa experiences 32 accidents per 100,000 people per year.<\/p>\n

The cost of this in human tragedy is enormous, while\u00a0the economic impact is R307 billion a year – representing between 8% –\u00a010% of GDP.<\/p>\n

Alcohol, speeding, and distracted driving are the three biggest causes of road accidents in South Africa, with the use of cellphones while driving one of the top causes of driver distraction.<\/p>\n

Dangers of using cellphones while driving<\/h3>\n

Cellphone usage while driving affects\u00a0driver competence, resulting in a 37% decrease in parietal lobe activity in the brain.<\/p>\n

Discovery Insure CEO Anton Ossip said that despite legislation prohibiting it, two-thirds of drivers still make cellphone calls while driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people attempt to text while driving and, and even though 40% of drivers have hands-free kits, 80% of their calls are made without using them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mobile<\/a>

Mobile phone use and driving<\/p><\/div>\n

Discovery Insure Driving Challenge<\/h3>\n

To address the problem of road safety, Discovery Insure launched its Discovery Insure Driving Challenge (DIDC) programme.<\/p>\n

It is centred on the DIDC app, which is designed to help drivers become more competent and aware behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

Data collected from users of the app shows that a single instance of mobile phone usage represents an average of 52 seconds of distracted driving.<\/p>\n

At 60km\/h, this is equivalent to driving \u201cblind\u201d for one kilometre, and makes the driver four times more likely to have an accident.<\/p>\n

The data also shows the worst 20% of drivers use their phones for an average of three minutes per trip.<\/p>\n

Cellphone usage while driving<\/h3>\n

In a recent presentation by Darryl Grater, head of special projects at Discovery Insure, he explained that when people take a call or try to text while driving, they typically slow down.<\/p>\n

After a while the person makes a correction, and increases speed.<\/p>\n

These changes are not only distracting to the driver, but also increases the dangers of an accident because of the increase of G-Force during the changes.<\/p>\n

The image below shows the changes which Discovery Insure found through the data they collected from drivers.<\/p>\n

\"Cellphone<\/a>

Cellphone usage while driving<\/p><\/div>\n

More on cellphone use while driving<\/h3>\n

Drivers text behind the wheel despite knowing dangers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tragic consequence of texting while driving<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Road accidents cost South Africa over R300 billion a year, and many of these accidents are caused by using mobile phones while driving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":76270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[30178,30180,30176,25197,30174,35],"class_list":["post-125634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-anton-ossip","tag-darryl-grater","tag-didc","tag-discovery-insure","tag-discovery-insure-driving-challenge","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125634"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125738,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125634\/revisions\/125738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}