Distracted driving responsible for over half of crashes in Georgia, report says

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - A new report from the Georgia Office of Highway Safety underscores the importance of putting down your phone, turning off your radio and focusing on the conditions around you.

According to a report, 53% of crashes come from distracted driving.

Distracted driving is defined by the Georgia Traffic Safety Fact Sheet as any time a driver diverts their attention from driving to focus on anything else. Most people associate phones with distracted driving but this study shows that it can be anything visually, manually or cognitively that can distract the driver.

According to data from the Georgia Traffic Safety Fact Sheet, 13% of people killed or seriously injured in a confirmed distraction-related crash were pedestrians or bicyclists.

But distracted driving doesn’t just impact those directly hit and their families. Sometimes, distracted driving impacts the innocent caught in the crossfire.

A video from Dougherty County shows an Albany police cruiser, “failed to yield the right of way and struck the left front of a crisp county bus,” causing the bus to strike and kill pedestrian 67-year-old Robert Skaggs.

The officer was not charged with distracted driving but did it he was “trying to get to a burglary” at the time of the crash.

26% of all distraction-related motor vehicle crashes involved drivers 15-24 years old.

Ryan Jewel was 18 at the time when he was accused of texting and driving. He ran through a stop sign at an intersection and hit the truck Kalvin and Wesley Hubbard were in. Wesley died at the scene and Kalvin died five weeks later.

Jewel has been sentenced to six months in Dougherty County Jail followed by 20 years on probation.

So, this data shows us that not all distracted driving can involve a cell phone. You can be driving and start looking at a sign for too long, didn’t see that red stop light, and ran through the intersection anyway, changing your music on the Apple Play in your car.

Driving is serious, and distracted driving is dangerous.

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