Broward County is one of Florida’s most populous counties and it is no surprise that we amongst the leaders the state in most distracted driving crash categories. In 2015, there was a total of 3762 automobile crashes attributed to distracted driving. As a result, 1944 crashes resulted in someone being injured. In total 2967 were injured in distracted driving and 8 people were killed.
North and adjacent to Broward County is Palm Beach County which experienced 2194 motorvehicle accidents in 2015 due to distracted driving, resulting in 1656 injuries and 6 deaths.
To the south in Dade County there was 4445 distracted driving accidents, 3227 injuries and 16 deaths.
Adding up the above statistics one can see that our region’s highways are being plagued by the death and destruction that distracted driving causes. Thank goodness that most of our highways are flat, straight and relatively easy to enter and exit.
There are things that you can do to lessen your chances of having a distracted driving accident. Shut your cell phone off before you get in the car and insist that your passengers do the same. Don’t eat or drink in the car. Resist changing the channel on you car radio as much as possible. Simply complying with these three request could reduce our county’s DWD statistics dramatically.
Another factor that is having a negative impact on our ability to reduce distracted driving accidents is that texting while driving is treated as only a secondary offense in our state. That means that you can not be pulled over simply for texting. There needs to be a primary traffic violation like reckless driving or speeding to create a valid reason for being pulled over. As a result, very little law enforcement is occurring when a driver is texting. Even when caught the penalty is extremely light, usually only a small fine.