Distracted driving = drunk driving. All doctors in and out of primary care should be telling patients this. Oprah talks about it nearly every day. We should, too. We have the rare privilege of an often captive audience. Our patients come to us for advice.
Framing distracted driving with drunk driving conveys the “Inherent Risk and implied immorality” of the situation, wrote Dr Amy Ship in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.
She says, “more than 275 millionAmericans own cell phones, and 81% of them talk on those phoneswhile driving.” It’s time for primary care doctors to not only talk about the issue, but frame and explain the risk that distracted driving poses for patients. In my world that is teenagers who are driving. And then all the children who ride around in cars with drivers who are distracted.
In the editorial, Dr Ship uses a Youtube video for storytelling and education. It’s a brilliant use of new media. A little morsel for all of us to endure.
If you have a teenager, will you please show them this video? Graphic, real, and powerful, it tells the story of consequence. And what it looks like to suffer from risks taken while driving distracted. If we can put down the phone, maybe we can all learn how to drive again. Don’t some people say they wish they were 16 again? This may be our chance.
Footer
Matt Baxter says
Hi, firstly i’ll give you a little of my background. I am a relatively highly qualified Driving Instructor in the UK who now specialises in Corporate Road Risk Management, I have been an instructor for 7 years now and have seen PLENTY of amazingly bad drivers whilst trying to teach my students the correct way to drive.
I visited my parents (who live in Houston TX) a couple of months ago, I was shocked to see how many people use mobile phones whilst driving…(I hasten to add that after quoting a few scary statistics, they stopped!) this was made illegal in the UK several years ago, okay, it doesn’t stop everyone, but I have seen a drastic drop in the amount of offenders.
Using a mobile phone has been likened to drunk driving in relation to reaction times.
The first person was prosecuted in the UK not so long ago for using his hands free kit for his phone, as this was deemed as the major contributing factor to the collision.
Matt Baxter
https://www.2drive4.co.uk/