If you were injured in a collision you need to consider all possible factors that may have contributed to the crash. Doing so could mean the difference between receiving compensation or not.
One factor you should never overlook is distraction. Driver distraction is a massive problem and most motorists are far more distracted than they realize. People often think it is just about refraining from using your phone, but distraction is far more complex than that.
The 3 forms of distraction
A motorist can be distracted in one of three ways, and often they are distracted in all three ways at once. Here are the three ways:
- Cognitive distraction: If your brain is thinking about something else other than what’s happening on the road around you, then cognitive distraction is at play. That applies whether you are thinking about the driver who cut you up half a mile back, worrying about an exam, trying to remember which number house your friend lives at or wondering whether the restaurant you saw advertised is worth stopping at.
- Visual distraction: What are you looking at when you drive? Any time you take your eyes off the road, you are visually distracted. It’s true whether you are reading a billboard, looking in the mirror to see if that was your ex walking on the sidewalk, or turning to talk to your current partner in the passenger seat.
- Manual distraction: You’ll see people carry out all sorts of manual tasks while driving from drinking to picking their nose, from cleaning their glasses to stroking their dog or changing out of their clothes. Anything that inhibits your ability to use your feet on the pedals or hands on the wheel is a manual distraction.
If you are involved in a collision, learning how to search for evidence of distractions that might have affected the other parties involved could help you get the compensation you need.