By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Nicholas Garlow with HHS HealthBeat.
Don’t take your eyes off the road. Easier said than done, sometimes, with elements of distracted driving – anything that can limit your concentration from the task at hand. Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham finds that drivers age 70 and older who drove with their pets all the time had double the rate of collisions compared with those who never drove with pets.
Gerald McGwin puts pets on a list of other distracting elements that include using your cell phone and eating.
“I think pets do cross a line from being an occupant in the car. My recommended course of action for seniors and in fact for any driver would be to minimize distractions in the car.”
The study in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
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HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Nicholas Garlow.