Undoubtedly, many people have told you their exceptional driving skills enable them to handle distractions behind the wheel, but they’re wrong. In fact, they probably cannot even handle distractions while on foot.

The Jersey City Medical Center regularly proves this point as a part of its distracted driving course. According to CBS Local, the center has developed a safer simulation of distracted driving by requiring participants to go through a walking course requiring navigation similar to the driving experience while entering math equations into a calculator. They report that most people who take the walking course fail it.

The test results should be no surprise when you consider that texting requires the use of the same brain functions people need to drive:

• Visual. You can only look at one thing at a time. Your eyes are off the road every time you look at your phone. In just 4.6 seconds of texting, your eyes are off the road while traveling the length of a football field, assuming a speed of 55 mph.
• Manual. Taking your hands off the wheel affects your navigation abilities, causing you to veer out of your lane and limiting your ability to respond to sudden emergencies.
• Cognitive. Your brain can truly focus on only one thing at a time. You need your full brainpower to respond quickly and efficiently to the multitude of situations that occur on the road.

Many drivers consider themselves effective while multitasking, but studies show the human brain does only one thing at a time, even though it has the ability to switch from one task to the next very quickly. Even when talking on a hands-free phone, drivers lose their focus on traffic conditions. Take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel to text, and the situation is ripe for tragedy.

Even if you avoid distracted driving, you also need to remain watchful for signs of distracted driving around you. Whenever possible, try to put enough space between you and distracted drivers. When you cannot avoid an accident with a distracted driver, an experienced car accident attorney can conduct a full investigation to help prove the causes of the collision — and who was liable.