A moment’s inattention while adjusting your sat nav is all it takes to cause a major crash.

The risks of drink-driving and driving tired have rightly had lots of publicity over the last few years.

What isn’t always appreciated, however, are the risks posed by routine, legal and accepted activities such as smoking, eating, drinking, and adjusting your sat nav or car stereo.

The reality is that anything which takes your eyes off the road and distracts your mind from the core activity of driving is a danger.

This week is Road Safety Week, organised by the charity Brake, and to mark the occasion I’d like to take a closer look at three of the biggest risks many drivers take when on the road:

1. Mobile phones: Hands-free or not, there is no doubt that having a telephone conversation distracts your mind from the job of driving and increases the likelihood that you will have an accident. According to Brake, drivers using mobile phones are four times more likely to crash, even if they are using a hands-free kit. The problem is the distraction, not holding the phone.
2. Sat navs & MP3 Players: Back in the day, you’d switch on the radio when you got in the car, and that would be it. Today, drivers navigate through complex touch-screen systems that involve digital maps, traffic information, mp3 playlists and much more. It’s all a bit like operating a computer — something no rational person would do while they were driving. If you use a sat nav or an mp3 player, program the device and set it up before you set off, and then listen to it as you drive. Don’t ‘touch and look’ as you drive — you are effectively driving along with your eyes closed.
3. Smoking, eating & drinking: I doubt there is anyone who hasn’t done at least one of these things while driving along — I know I have — yet the reality is that each of them distracts you from the job in hand, and frequently creates an in-vehicle hazard that could end up causing an accident. The dropped-cigarette-and-boiling-coffee-in-the-lap scenario is no urban myth, and even if nothing goes wrong, you are still distracted.

Now, I know that some of you will read this and think yes, that’s all very well in theory, but I live in the real world. I can hold a cup of coffee and look where I’m going, and as for sat navs — well, they are obviously designed to be looked at. Who doesn’t look at their sat nav while they are driving?

All I can say in response is that recent research in the USA showed that driver inattention was a factor in 78% of crashes.

I know, and you know, that most regular drivers have had near misses due to being distracted — and the only difference between a near miss and a crash is luck. Do you really want to rely on Lady Luck to keep you safe?

Although a certain number of crashes are inevitable — we’ll all human, and we do make mistakes — allowing ourselves to be distracted by electronic gadgets and junk food simply isn’t good enough. When driving, switch off your phone and put it out of reach, don’t play with your sat nav or mp3 player and don’t eat, smoke or argue with passengers.