Ohio State Highway Patrol recognizes distracted driving awareness month

ZANESVILLE – According to the patrol, anything that is taking your eyes off the road for even a few seconds is considered driving while distracted. You may not have known that distracted driving is broken down into three different classifications.

“There’s the visual form, the manual form, and the cognitive form. So, with visual, what happens is the person takes their eyes off the roadway. The manual form is taking your hands off of the steering wheel and the cognitive form is taking your mind off the task that you’re doing, ” Ohio Highway Patrol Sergeant Nathan Dennis said.

Driving and not paying attention is no laughing matter and Sgt. Dennis shared staggering statistics of injuries that arose from drivers being distracted.

“We look at last year alone; over 13 thousand people were involved in crashes that involved distracted driving. In addition to that, 48 people lost their lives as a result of either their distracted driving or someone else’s distracted driving. So, that kind of puts into perspective just how dangerous distracted driving can be,” Dennis said.

Dennis wanted to reiterate that driving while distracted or using your phone is a citable offense.