One thing that you will ll find when you drive is that it can be incredibly overstimulating. There is a lot of information to digest, and it is a very complex process.
Even if you’re just driving to work, on a road you always use, you’re still going to see things like billboards, stop signs, traffic lights, road construction zones and much more. You also have to be able to analyze the traffic around you and look out for mistakes made by other drivers.
Furthermore, you may be listening to music or a podcast in the car. You could also be using your phone or a GPS to guide you regarding where to go. If you have children or passengers in the car with you, they could be talking to each other or to you. In other words, there are quite a lot of distractions.
Couldn’t you multitask?
You can see how much information you have to process when you’re driving. Even under the best of circumstances, it can be very distracting. Some people claim that they get around it by multitasking. They say they’re good at doing things like texting while they drive or talking to their children and keeping their eyes on the road.
But the issue here is that multitasking isn’t actually real. You can’t do multiple things at once. Instead, your brain is forced to switch back-and-forth between two tasks almost simultaneously. This means that you certainly can still be distracted because you really are only doing one task at a time, even if you feel like you’re safely multitasking.
Plus, many drivers are trying to do far more than two things at once. Another driver – who you have to share the road with – could be listening to music while they look at their GPS screen, all with billboards flashing by and a child talking from the back seat.
Have you been injured?
You may decide to drive safely by eliminating some of these distractions and reducing the amount of information you have to consume. That is a good idea, but you could still be injured by another driver who hasn’t made the same choices. Make sure you know how to seek financial compensation if this happens.
