Reaction times

Many factors can impact on your reaction times.

Alcohol

Drinking only a small amount of alcohol can seriously effect our ability to react. Drivers with 50–80 mg blood alcohol content (under the legal limit) are around 2.5 times more likely to have an accident.

Tiredness

Tiredness is a factor in around 10% of accidents (20% on motorways). If you are tired, opening the window, turning up music, drinking coffee or taking a short nap may work for a short time.

Using mobile phones and talking to passengers

These both take our concentration away from the road. Using a  mobile phone also means we are in less control of our vehicle. When talking to passengers we often take our eyes off the road and take longer to spot hazards.

Driving experience

Inexperience means it takes longer  to identify something as being a hazard and longer to decide what to do about it.

Lack of concentration

It can be easy, particularly on long or familiar journeys and motorway driving, to lose concentration and drive on auto-pilot.

The weather

Rain, snow, fog, bright sunlight and other weather conditions will alter our ability to see, increasing the time it will take us to react to a hazard.

Other distractions

• Eating while driving
• Using your in-car stereo
• Map reading
• Looking at the scenery
• Smoking
• Finding parking
   

Often more than one of these factors is present.

For more information call 0845 2302882 or email tfb@buckscc.gov.uk