Everyone knows of the dangers of using a cell phone while driving, but there is yet another driving distraction that most people in Georgia are not aware of – daydreaming.
Most of us would not consider daydreaming to be a dangerous activity. However, driving while daydreaming significantly increases your risk of being involved in an accident. In fact, driving while daydreaming is one of the leading causes of accidents. Unfortunately, most people may not even realize the dangers associated with driving while daydreaming since it is something most of us do at the wheel at one point or another.
New research shows that most people are likely to daydream when they are behind the wheel, especially when driving familiar routes. In a recent study, participants submitted to a driving simulation and had their brain activity analyzed during the simulation. The researchers found that people’s minds were more likely to wander, i.e. daydream, when they were involved in a routine driving activity such as driving the same route several times as opposed to driving in unfamiliar settings. The daydreaming occurred more than 70% of the time during the study. Even more concerning was the finding that the participants were only aware that they were distracted approximately 65% of the time.