Photo: screenshot from Vimeo
Every rider out there knows how bad it is to be around drivers that are not paying attention to the traffic because they are fiddling with their smartphones. It is our chance now to speak our mind and, with the help of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), to stop this from happening.
Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requested comments on its Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for Portable and Aftermarket Devices. If you never heard of this, the purpose of it is to provide a safety framework for developers of portable and aftermarket electronic devices to use when creating visual-manual user interfaces for their systems.
To put it in simple words, the aim is to force electronics manufacturers implement some sort of “Driving Mode” for devices that will reduce the potential for unsafe driver distraction.
The American Motorcyclist Association applauds NHTSA for its effort, because these guidelines are part of the NHTSA’s ongoing effort to combat the problem of distracted and inattentive driving. Motorcyclists know how dangerous distracted drivers can be and these guidelines are an effort to address the danger resulting from the ever-increasing number of smart phones and other portable devices making their way into drivers’ hands.
The U.S. Department of Transportation certainly is aware of the dangers posed by driver distraction, based on its own 2005 landmark research report released by the NHTSA and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
This report found that “nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event. Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use…” The AMA shares the NHTSA’s position that these guidelines for portable and aftermarket devices are an important way to “mitigate the real-world risk posed by driver distraction from portable devices.”
So, if you want to take part in this and express your support for the motorcycle community, don’t forget to voice your opinion here before February 3rd. Now more than ever, it is crucial that you and your riding friends become members of the AMA to help protect our riding freedoms. More members mean more clout against the opponents of motorcycling.
To put it in simple words, the aim is to force electronics manufacturers implement some sort of “Driving Mode” for devices that will reduce the potential for unsafe driver distraction.
The American Motorcyclist Association applauds NHTSA for its effort, because these guidelines are part of the NHTSA’s ongoing effort to combat the problem of distracted and inattentive driving. Motorcyclists know how dangerous distracted drivers can be and these guidelines are an effort to address the danger resulting from the ever-increasing number of smart phones and other portable devices making their way into drivers’ hands.
The U.S. Department of Transportation certainly is aware of the dangers posed by driver distraction, based on its own 2005 landmark research report released by the NHTSA and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
This report found that “nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event. Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use…” The AMA shares the NHTSA’s position that these guidelines for portable and aftermarket devices are an important way to “mitigate the real-world risk posed by driver distraction from portable devices.”
So, if you want to take part in this and express your support for the motorcycle community, don’t forget to voice your opinion here before February 3rd. Now more than ever, it is crucial that you and your riding friends become members of the AMA to help protect our riding freedoms. More members mean more clout against the opponents of motorcycling.
Google News