The time has come to teach our teenagers that texting isn’t the only distracting, unsafe activity you can engage in while driving.
Researchers have found that teenagers are multitasking more than ever while driving, even going as far as changing their contact lenses and putting on their makeup, according to NPR.
According to the recent study, which was published this week in the Journal of Transportation Safety and Security, 27 percent of teenagers reportedly stated that they sometimes change clothes and shoes while they are driving as well.
“We were pretty surprised at the changing clothes bit,” stated David Hurwitz, an assistant professor of transportation engineering at Oregon State University who led the study.
He added, “Teens are busy, I guess.”
Busy or not, teens need to learn that when one is behind the wheel, he or she needs to focus on just that.
The good news about the study is that it was found that fewer teenagers are texting while driving compared to earlier studies, according to TIME. Despite the drop in texting teenagers, around 40 percent of them reportedly still admitted to engaging in texting while driving.
In the course of the study, researchers reportedly asked teenagers they surveyed to participate in an interactive drivers education class in high school in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. In order to help kids understand the dangers of multitasking while driving, researchers reportedly had the students do two things at once outside of being behind the wheel.
Instructors reportedly asked students to try writing down numbers on a chalkboard while having a phone conservation, an activity that the teens found difficult.
“This study seems promising,” stated Bruce Simons-Morton, a behavioral scientist with the National Institutes of Health who researches adolescent driving and accident prevention.
He continued, “There really hasn’t been much research on how you can convince teens to alter their behavior through classroom interventions. So this is a good start.”