Distracted drivers experience what researchers call “inattention blindness”, similar to that of tunnel vision. Drivers are looking out the windshield, but do not process everything in the environment that they must know to effectively monitor their surroundings. (See below.)
Inattention blindness, caused by simply talking on a cell phone, was the reason for the following crash:
- A 20 year-old woman, who, witnesses said, was looking up and out the windshield, never stopped when she ran a red light and “t-boned” another car hitting a 12 year-old boy sitting in the passenger seat. The boy died the next day. The woman who caused the crash pled guilty to negligent homicide. Two families ruined because someone was talking on a cell phone.
