Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Accidents due to Slippery Road


Accidents due to Slippery Road

                                  

Nowadays, accidents are likely to occur everywhere regardless young, adult or old people. A road accident, also known as a traffic accident, motor vehicle collision, motor vehicle accident, car accident, automobile accident, Road Traffic Collision (RTC), car crash, or car smash (Australian) occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other stationary obstruction, such as a tree or utility pole. Traffic collisions may result in injury, death, vehicle damage and property damage.
Some organizations have begun to avoid the term "accident". Although auto collisions are rare in terms of the number of vehicles on the road and the distance they travel, addressing the contributing factors can reduce their likelihood. For example, proper signage can decrease driver error and thereby reduce crash frequency by a third or more. That is why these organizations prefer the term "collision" rather than "accident".
          However, treating collisions as anything other than "accidents" has been criticized for holding back safety improvements, because a culture of blame may discourage the involved parties from fully disclosing the facts, and thus frustrate attempts to address the real root causes.
         A number of factors contribute to the risk of collision including; vehicle design, speed of operation, road design, road environment, driver skill and/or impairment and driver behaviour. Worldwide, motor vehicle collisions lead to death and disability as well as financial costs to both society and the individuals involved.
          A 1985 study by K. Rumar, using British and American crash reports as data, found that 57% of crashes were due solely to driver factors, 27% to combined roadway and driver factors, 6% to combined vehicle and driver factors, 3% solely to roadway factors, 3% to combined roadway, driver, and vehicle factors, 2% solely to vehicle factors and 1% to combined roadway and vehicle factors.[1]
          In this article, I will highlight about accident that is caused by slippery road. Road slipperiness is the technical term for the cumulative effects of water on the traction produced by the wheels of a vehicle. Road slipperiness can be measured either the terms of the friction between a freely-spinning wheel and the ground, or the braking distance of a braking vehicle, and is related to the coefficient of friction between the tyre and the road surface.
          Road slipperiness is one of the largest contributors to car accidents – in 2001, over 5300000 accidents were caused by slippery roads in the worldwide[2]. A small change in road slipperiness can have a drastic effect on surface friction: decreasing the coefficient of friction from 0.45 to 0.35, equivalent to adding a dusting of wet snow, increased the accident rate by almost 1000%. As such, road agencies have a number of approaches to decreasing road slipperiness.
         A special road safety problem is split friction (when the friction significantly differs between the left and the right wheel path)[3]. The road may then not be perceived as hazardous when accelerating, cruising or even braking softly, but in a case of hard braking, the different in friction will cause the vehicle to start to rotate towards the side offering higher grip. Split friction may be caused by an improper road spot repair that results in high variance of texture road and colour across the road section.
        The two ways to measure road slipperiness are surface friction testing and stopping distance testing. Friction testing can use surface friction testers or portable friction testers and involves allowing a freely moving object, usually wheel, to move again the surface. By measuring the resistance experienced by the wheel, the friction between the ground and the wheel can be found.
          Public works agencies spend a sizeable proportion of their budget measuring and reducing road slipperiness through drainage and street sweeping in order to maximize road safety; even a small increase in slipperiness of a section of road can increase the accident rate of the section of road tenfold.
          There are lots of ways that are designed to overcome the slippery road. The best example is road is designed with a convex camber[4]. This convex camber provides sufficient drainage, thereby allowing surface water to drain out of the road. Trouble sections include entrances and exits of banked outercurves, where the cross slope is close to zero. Unless these sections have a longitudinal grade of at least 0.4 – 0.5 %, water will not run off the road surface. Storm drains may be installed at regular intervals and modern paving materials are designed to provide high friction in most conditions. Permeable paving allows water to soak through the paving material, reducing slipperiness in very adverse conditions.         
         At Malaysia, slippery road is considered as one of the main factors road accidents. The government had drafted many ways to prevent the road accident from keep increasing from time to time. According to The Malaysian Road Transport Department, the accident that is related to slippery road has shown a significant increase from last 3 years[5]. This scenario became worst when the drivers do not take seriously about this matter.
         Even though slippery road is regard as one of main factor of road accident, there are also other factors that are contributing in road accident such as careless, speeding, drunken, and brake dysfunction.
         The Prophet said, “By the will of Allah which brought the universe into being, everything happens for reason- there are no accidents, only the fulfillment of probabilities[6]”.
  

There are lots of accident that was happened at worldwide right now. The Prophet said, “Few major accidents manifest without Allah giving due warning. That we fail to see, nor heed is our fault”. In islam, we must believe that there are the reasons of why everythings happened. Below are examples of car accidents news.
          KUALA TERENGGANU: Four people were killed in a tragic accident involving three vehicles at Jalan Sultan Mizan near Taman Semarak Gong Badak here Wednesday. In the 6.30pm accident, Nor Azni Mat Jusoh, 41, from Felda Mengkawang Ajil, Zaini Abdul Razak, 43, from Ayer Keroh, Malacca, Mohd Faris Mohd Shaimi, 26, and Mohd Rizal Ibrahim, 30, from Kedah died at the scene. According to Kuala Terengganu Fire and Rescue Department Operations Chief Abdullah Zawawi Mohamad, a Honda City car driven by Mohd Faris and his friend Mohd Rizal and heading to Kuala Terengganu from Gong Badak, went out of control because of slippery road before landing on a Perodua Kancil car coming from the opposite direction. The bodies of the dead were later sent to the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital[7].
          A 100-year-old driver plowed his Cadillac into a group of people near an elementary school in South Los Angeles this afternoon, injuring nine kids and two adults, reports AP. Four of the kids, ranging in age from 4 to 11, were in serious condition at a local hospital, reports KTLA-TV. Authorities identified the driver as Preston Carter, and the TV station (which has his age as 101) reports that he thinks his brakes failed. Carter was not injured in the crash. Chief Police added, the main caused of this accident is caused by the road that is very slippery[8].
          Below here is one of remembered-accident story ever in history that is involve Princess of Wales, Princess Diana. According to sources, the slippery road is one of main factor of the accident.                    
         On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the Mercedes-Benz W140, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. The bodyguard of Diana and Dodi, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor. Although at first the media pinned the blame on thepaparazzi, the crash was ultimately found to be caused by the reckless actions of the chauffeur, who was the head of security at the Ritz and had earlier goaded the paparazzi waiting outside the hotel. An 18-month French judicial investigation concluded in 1999 that the crash was caused by Paul, who lost control of the car at high speed because of the slippery road and drunk. His inebriation may have been made worse by the simultaneous presence of an anti-depressant and traces of a tranqulizing anti-psychotc in his body.

One of famous Indonesia Islamic Scholar, Prof Dr Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah[9] aka Prof Dr Hamka during the World Muslim Forum at Jakarta has said that, Allah S.W.T has granted us a life, so, why don’t we use that chance by doing something that pleasure Allah S.W.T as our creator. He added, nowadays, lots of car accident had caused lot of death among of mankind and this thing actually can be prevented if we have high awareness about how harmful the car accident it is. 

          Besides Prof Dr Hamka, Dr Asri Zainul Abidin (Malaysian Famous Islam Missionary) also said that, lots of Malaysian died due to road accidents. He added, as a muslim, we are forbid to do something that might harm ourselves such as speeding while driving or doing something that might cause dangerous to others. He gives example that, one way to avoid accident is do not driving at the slippery road because it is dangerous and doing so might be caused trouble to others people.

         The British famous philosopher, F. H. Bradley, has mentioned that the world is getting sophisticated by day to day. He added, even we live at a sophisticated world, it is so sad to think of how many people died due to road accidents. He also said in famous book that one of most often thing happen to human is accidents. In that book also stated that human should know the driving rules first before start the engine of car.

          Jeremy Bentham, a western philosopher has stated that accidents have caused lots of loss of life among humans. He added, this thing should be prevented immediately so that human population can keep increasing by day to day.

          Based on my opinion, the main factor of road accidents are caused by less awareness about how dangerous the accident it is. If every person know about this thing, I’m 100 % sure that the number of road accidents can be reduced by day to day. But everything happened has its own reasons. Grieve not, for Allah is with us[10].






In conclusion, road accidents have caused lots of loss life among human. Road accidents cause both tangible and intangible costs to the economy. Some of the tangible costs include such as: Damage to the vehicle (replacement and repair costs); administration costs; Medical treatment;reduction in output due to injury and death; and 
insurance costs.
           Intangilble costs include pain,grief and suffering and the risk of being involved in an accident. In economical terms the cost of road accidents to the Zambian economy is estimated at about 3% of the GDP[11]. The yearly costs of road accidents to the ecomomy is in billions of kwacha, and since all vehicles and medicines aree imported, this amount depletes the scarce foreign exchange available in the economy.

          Road accidents cause direct impact on the social and physical enviromrnt. Whenever a person is involved in an accident, most likely the family will have to sustain the medical burden or, alternately, in the event of death, the whole family may become financially vulneral.
           The Road Safety Authority's (RSA) annual international road safety conference, which is being held in Dublin Castle today (May 26), is focusing on the ‘human impact of road collisions'. It is being attended by almost 200 people, including international experts, victims of road accidents and family members who have lost a loved one in a collision.
          Speaking at the conference, Brigitte Chaudhry, coordinator of the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR), presented findings from a FEVR study on the impact of road deaths and injuries. It found that depression, anger, suicidal feelings, anxiety attacks and loss of drive are more common in the relatives of victims left with disabilities than the victims themselves.
          "The FEVR study shows that it's not just the victim who suffers as a result of a serious injury or death on our roads. Whilst negative emotions obviously affect the person involved in the collision, our study shows that the families of these victims often present more pronounced psychological suffering than the victims themselves," she explained. Dr Edward Hickling, an author and clinical psychologist from New York, presented his research on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in people who are seriously injured in road collisions.
          We should know that all these happening included road accidents have been determined by Allah S.W.T. Al-Qura has mention that (Allah) The Originator of the heavens and the earth. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, "Be,[12]"





[1] Harry Lum & Jerry A. Reagan. The 2010 Statistical Abstract: Road Accidents and Fatalities. Public Road Magazine. Page 25
[2]  Charles and Geoffrey. The Biggest Killer On The Road: Slippery Road. Time Publisher. The Times. (May) 2011
[3] Prof Dr Mathew. The Road Friction: Volume 1. Oxford Limited. Oxford Publisher. (June) 2007
[4] JJ Thomson. Safety At Slippery Road: Convex Camber. Academic Press. (June) 2008
[5] Malaysia Road Safety; Malaysian Road Statistics. Cerdik Publisher. Cerdik Book Sdn. Bhd. (May) 2009
[6] Hadith by Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W)
[7] The Star. The Star Publisher Sdn Bhd. (18 January) 2012
[8] AP Papers. AP Press. (March) 2011
[9] Biography of Hamka. Al Mawardi Prima. Al Mawardi Publisher. 2009
[10] {Qur’an 9:40}
[11] Dr Steven Mark. Zimbabwe Economy; Gross Domestic Profits. Harvard Press. (Jun) 2009

[12] Surah Al-Baqara verse 117 

Driver Behavior


Driver Behavior



Nowadays, road accidents are very common in Malaysia. Everyday we read newspaper we also can saw many news about there are many people involved in the road accidents. First of all, what is means by road accidents? Road accidents are means that when some automobile crash together or the vehicle crash on the side of the road or the peoples at the road. According to the sources from Royal Malaysian Police, there is a statistic mentioning the number of the road accidents from the year 1998 until the year 2006. I realize that the total numbers of road accidents happen in each year of the year 1998 until year 2006 are reach six digit of number. This is huge and terrible numbers, and from the statistic it also stated that five to six thousands peoples dead in a year because of involved in the road accidents. On the other hand, it also means that, every year there is five to six thousands peoples losing of their love member such as, love partner, family members and so on. The number of road accidents is also increased from the year 1998 until the year 2006. The number of road accidents is increased from three hundred thousand until five hundred thousand.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            There[1] are many types of vehicle on the road, such as motorcycle, bus, car, taxi and goods vehicle. According to the statistic from the Royal Malaysian Police, it claims that, car is like the water in a human body, it stand 75% to 80% out of all types of vehicle which carried the number two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand out of the total road accident happen in the year 1998 until 2006. As we know that, Malaysia is a multinational country, there are many different types of religion in Malaysia. All different types of religion will celebrate their own festival such as Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Chinese New Years, Happy Deepavali and so on. Almost all M[2]alaysian will go back to the hometown for the celebration. During the season of the festival, road accident will happen more often compare to the normal day. According to Legal Match, they believe that, there are several causes of road accident such as, the behaviour of driver, mechanical failure, road conditions and also weather. We as a Malaysian we need to reduce the number of road accident by some solutions. Let's discuss about the first categorize of road accidents which is because of the driver behaviour. According to Legal Match, they agree that driver behaviour is one of the causes of road accident, and they also claim that there are 98% of road accidents happen because of the distracted driver. There are many types of driver behaviour that will cause road accident and most of the driver would not realize that those actions are dangerous while driving.

The first types of driver behaviour that will cause road accidents are on phone while driving. Mobile phone now is very advanced in technologies even can watch television programs by online. Some of the drivers use this kind of technologies while they are driving. As we know that we just have a pair of eyes and we cannot watch the road and the phone on the same time. On this situation we will lack of concentration and it will cause us involve in the road accident. Besides that, some driver also use the mobile phone to sending Short Messages Services and on call whiles they driving. The second types of driver behaviour are the driver adjusting the radio or the CD player while they driving. After we finish heard the CD we will change[3] another CD for some different songs. Let's imagines if the car in on drive and the driver are trying to find for the other CD from the dashboard, this is will cause some of the moment the driver will not notice the conditions of the front road and this will cause the accident occur. There are also high possible chances of accidents will happen if we are trying to adjust the radio tunnel when we are driving. The third types of driver behaviour are drunk driving.                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                                                                   According to the articles by Alcohol Problems and Solutions they insist that a driver with high blood alcohol content (BAC) has the higher risk will involve in car accidents. This is because when a person with high BAC will affect the person coordination and this have been proved by Alcohol Problems and Solutions. There is an experiment show that, a person is trying to write such words “Drinking doesn't affect my driving” before drunk and after drunk. The result show that, the person after drunk will write the words more blur and unallocated. On the other hand, it also means that if we are drunk driving we will drive in the blur condition, and it will cause road accident. Rubbernecking and tailgating also the causes of road accidents. First of all, what is means by rubbernecking? According to Legal Match they claim that, rubbernecking is the driver slow down their cars watching what is going on because of their curiosity and tailgating is means by the driver are follow the front car with a very close distance. When on the highway there is an accidents happen, some of the people will because of curios slow down their cars to watch what was happen, but if there are a person on tailgating the accidents will happen. This is because if there is highway all people are driving with speed and the sit[4]uation is tailgating. Thus the person will unable to break their car immediately and the tailgating car will crash on the rubbernecking car.

O you who have believed, do not consume one another's wealth unjustly but only [in lawful] business by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves [or one another]. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful. [4:29]
Past and present, there are lots of stories that related to road accidents. One of the stories is a Universiti Malaya (UM) student from China was killed after she was hit by a car while crossing Jalan [5]Universiti here. The victim, Xiao Xiao,18, was walking across to her car near a supermarket to return to her residence in UM when the incident occured at 9.30pm Saturday. A witness known only as Johnson, 24, said Xiao Xiao, a semester one student business administration, was hit by a speeding Nissan Sylphy. "My best friend Xiao Xiao suffered head injuries. I only knew her for one year and hope police can take appropriate action," he said. He said the car driver stoped the vehicle and later made a police report at the Petaling Jaya police headquarters. Xiao Xiao's remains were sent to Kuala Lumpur Hospital and later claimed by her cousin to be taken back to China. Meanwhile, a Petaling Jaya police source said police had recorded a statement from the driver and several people to help in investigations."According to eyewitness reports, the victim crossed the road suddenly causing the Nissan driver to slam on the brakes," he added. Anyone with information on the case can contact the Petaling Jaya police at 03-79662222. The case is investigated under Section 41 (1) of Road Transport Act.

Then, the next story goes like this, Seberang Prai Municipal councillor Bakhtiar Appandi Yahya died after being involved in an accident with a lorry in Taman Desa Sena Indah here Thursday. The driver, in his 30s, was beaten up by the witnesses, armed with crash helmets, when he came down from his lorry to check on Bakhtiar's condition. He had to be rescued by a police team. He was then sent to the Kepala Batas Hospital where he was warded with head and body injuries. His lorry was torched. The 56-year old two-term councillor, a pest control company branch manager, was said to be heading to his Lorong Desa Sena 11 home on a motorcycle when the incident happened at about 5pm.He died on the spot due to head and body injuries. Fellow councillor S. Guanalan said he had just met Bakhtiar in a meeting at the coucil headquarters in Bandar Perda, Bukit Mertajam, at 2.30pm. “I was chatting with him after the meeting ended at 4pm, and he left for home several minutes later. I could not believe it when I head the tragic news later.”Council president Maimunah Mohd Sharif said she was shocked to hear of Bakhtiar's sudden demise, noting that fellow council employees and councillors would miss him. “He was a jovial person and I remember him dancing when I sang a song during the council's Hari Anugerah ceremony in the Bertam Sports Complex recently.”She added that it would be a sad day at the full council meeting Friday, noting that council secretary Roz[6]ali Mohamud would proceed to read aloud the answers to the written questions which Bakhtiar had submitted earlier. Bakhtiar's remains were buried at Masjid Kampung Bonggol, here at 11pm Thursday night.

I've heard about quote that sounded like this “Life... is like a box of chocolates - a cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that no one ever asks for, unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates.  So, you're stuck with mostly undefinable whipped mint crap, mindlessly wolfed down when there's nothing else to eat while you're watching the game.  Sure, once in a while you get a peanut butter cup or an English toffee but it's gone too fast and the taste is fleeting.  In the end, you are left with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, which, if you are desperate enough to eat, leaves nothing but an empty box of useless brown paper”. This quote was spoken by Howard Nordberg one of the international scholars. This quote  might be related with an accident because every accident may lead to death. Therefore, this life was so easy to be lost and in the end every man will face to death like what was said in the quote above. Then, the second advice from international scholars is from Charles Sanders Peirce. It sounded like this ”If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seei[7]ng the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery.  He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does.  In place of this we have death”. So it does means that everyone cannot avoid death because people do not last forever. In term of this case, accident definitely may leads to death so everyone cannot predict when it will happens and how to avoid it.

While, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jailani has said that “it is impossible to lay hands on that which is not predestined for us, and that which is predestined for us will reach us wherever we are”. Generally, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jailani is one of the famous Islamic scholars that muslims should be proud of all his kindness in all aspects. The relation to the accident is that an inevitable destiny for every fate is already determined ever since by ALLAH S.W.T. Thus, we cannot avoid from accident and death and we absolutely don’t know when is the end of our’s life. The second Islamic scholar is Hassan al-Basri said that “whoever follows patience, success will follow him”. That means patience is everything for us to succeed in life. So, while driving we must be patience and be calm to make sure everything goes smoothly.

In my opinion, everyone must follow the rules set by the relevant authorities and everyone also have to follow the ways set safety while driving vehicles. Every accident cannot be avoided by everyone and it is often fatal that cannot be described. Therefore, we must trust in God for everything that happens.[8] Government should plan some effective solution for reduce traffic accidents in future. Everyone need to be alert of the surroundings when driving. Drivers should try to be patient and understanding while driving. Some of the ways of prevention of road accident must be submitted to conclude thi[9]s. We as a Malaysian we need to reduce the number of road accidents. We cannot let the number of road accident increase anymore. First of all, we need to do best on our own responsibility. There are some solutions to reduce the number of road accidents. “Car maintenance” is one of the solutions. We need to ensure our car is being service on the fixed particular period. This is for check out whether our car is still on safe conditions for us to drive or there is any mechanical failures occur such as break failure, tires, wipers, and so on. Besides that, “rest” it is also a very significant rule that we need to be prepare before we drive. We need to ensure that we have enough sleep before we are drive. This is to make sure that when the muggy day we not easily get to asleep. Furthermore, with enough rest we can be more patient, put more effort to control our emotion and pay more attention while drive. Everyday before we go out we need to read the news of weather forecast. We need to ensure that the day is good weather and would not have any storming rain, if there are storming rain try to avoid go out. Mobile phone and cigarette should keep away while on driving. Try to avoid using mobile phone sending short message services and do not smoke while driving. As we know that, god just created a pair of hand for us to live in this world. If we use a hand to smoke or using mobile phone we would not have enough hand to control the steering while we take U-turn. The last matter we need to do prevention is not involved in drunk driving. Drunk driving is very dangerous we need to remember that, there is always some significant person in our life waiting for us to go back home with safety.

As a conclusion, there are a lot causes of road accidents but the main causes of road accidents occur is because of driver behaviour. I think moral are play a very significant role in our life, it teach us how to love other person and ourselves but before we love other person we need to learn how to love ourselves and appreciate the life that have been given by god for us. We as a driver, we need to responsibility for what we have done, cannot done some actions that might cause accident occur or injury other person such as, on phone while driving, drunk driving and so on. Those actions are really dangerous if we do it when we are drive because we cannot control the car well with doing such actions. Remember that, our family member are [10]always worried about us and carried about us. There is no peoples are wishing to involve in a road accidents, it is really a tragedy it make a lot of people lost of their family member. Besides that, all Malaysian should be cooperating to reduce the number of road accidents and our slogan “Malaysia Boleh”.

O you who have believed, seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, Allah is with the patient. [2:153]






[1] Abdul Rahman, N, Road safety situation in Malaysia n.d. Retrieved: November 13, 2007,
[2] Common causes of car accidents lawyers n.d. Retrieved: November 12, 2007
[3] Royal Malaysian Police, Table 1.10 n.d. Retrieved: November 13, 2007
[4] Desktop Reference for Crash Reduction Factors Report No. FHWA-SA-07-015, Federal Highway Administration September, 2007
[5] University Malaya, The Star, Star Publications (Malaysia) Berhad, 2008.
[6] By Bakhtiar Appandi Yahya, The New Straight Times (Malaysia) Berhad, 2010
[7] Brilliant quotes, 1001 questions about life, page 230, year 1922
[8]  Charles, Geoffrey (11 March 1969). "Cars And Drivers Accident prevention instead of blame". The Times.
[9] Jack A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Violation of Traffic Rules, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 629, 2009.
[10] Mr Farland, Ross A, Human Variables in Motor Vehicle Accidents, Boston, Mass: Harvard School of Public Health 1998, page 211, year 1989

DRIVER DISTRACTION


DRIVER DISTRACTION



Motor vehicles disaster or car accidents are quiet happen in our country, Malaysia. These situations are happening especially during celebrating festival of the year. There are a lot of festivals celebrating in this country such as Hari Raya Puasa, Chinese New Year, Deepavali and other more. The Police of Malaysia (PDRM) had made a lot of operation to reduce the number of the accident in the entire road around the country. They introduce the operation such as Ops Sikap1, Ops Sikap2 and Ops Selamat. However there is still having the driver who does not care about the rule and made the number of accident keep increasing. The political people had debate a lot about the case in the parliament in order to find the suitable solution. However, the result still does not give many changes in the number of accident. So, in order to resolve this problem, we firstly should focus on the factors that make the accident happen. There are some factors that are highly important such as road condition, weather condition, and driver condition. All of that are come from the driver distraction. This is the topic that will elaborate more in this article.

            Driver distraction can be defined as the diversion of attention away from activities critical for safe driving toward a competing activity[1]. In the other words, there is something that takes a person who drives the car, which is their mind off other especially in more serious affairs. Psychologists have known for more than century that humans are fundamentally limited in their ability to divide attention between competing tasks[2] and that, under certain conditions (i.e., when the tasks are highly demanding, and require continuous attention[3]), the performance of one or both will inevitably suffer. There has been much debate in the scientific literature about the locus of this limitation and the psychological mechanisms that give rise to it. Diversion of attention away from activities critical for safe driving toward a competing activity can occur willingly, such as when driver initiates a mobile phone conversion, or it can occur involuntary, such as when item of information in the road environment (e.g., a moving billboard, an ambulance siren) compels the driver to attend to it. Indeed, the human mind is easily diverted from one activity to another, and there is good reason for this. From an evolutionary perspective, it is often advantageous. It is no accident of nature that certain objects, events, and activities are more diverting than others. There is biological advantage in having the human mind unwittingly orient itself toward objects, events, and activities that signify danger (such as a child running unexpectedly onto the roadway ahead, or a spider crawling on the windscreen) or to those that may be instrumental in perpetuating the species (such as other humans deemed to be attractive). Advertising material is design to exploit this gift of nature; billboards are designed to attract attention.

            As driving is a task that relies primarily on visual information, a sensible starting place is to define in general terms what sorts of visual information are present in many roadways. There are various means by which it can be determined which objects in the external environment could potentially distract a driver; one approach is presented in the following text. Other approaches would include examining the sources of distraction cited in police forms, using verbal protocol analysis while people are driving or using simulator data. The possible taxonomy of visual information in the road environment suggested here classifies entities into one of the four groups: built roadway (entities put there explicitly by road/highway engineers), situational entities, the natural environment, and the built environment[4]. One way to discover what things in the external environment are distracting is simply to ask drivers. Surprisingly, little research has been conducted in this area; however, recent research by Edquist et al.[5] explored the related issue of what drivers meant by “visual clutter” in the roadway environment. In this work, 54 drivers viewed a series of different road scenes and took part in the group discussion.


            Another one of the most frequently reported is used of a mobile, or cellular, phone. Several studies have demonstrated that the distracting effect of concurrent mobile phone use on driving performance measures is greater for older drivers compared with other age groups.  More specific areas of detection time,[6] visual scanning,[7] lane keeping and driving speed,[8] visual fixation and recognition memory, and time to dial and answer the phone. In contrast, in some studies no such age differences have been found. These authors reported that the effects of handsfree phone conversation tasks on reaction time, following distance, and speed recovery after braking did not differ between drivers aged 18-25 years and those aged 65-74. A possible reason for this finding may be that older drivers were compared with young drivers, who demonstrate similar degradations in driving when distracted. In addition, Shinar et al. demonstrated that the initial deleterious effects of handsfree phone conversations on many simulated driving tasks were reduced or eliminated with continued practise, albeit at a faster rate for younger drivers (aged 18-33) than for older drivers (aged 60-71). More specifically, in the course of five sessions, participants were given two kinds of distracting phones tasks while driving: (1) an arithmetic operations task and (2) a conversation in which participants were asked a series of questions about information they had provided before the tasks to generate conversations that would be emotionally challenging. The authors report that the effects of the distracting tasks on driving were greatest when the distracting task was difficult; the driver was older (60-71 years). All participants owned mobile phones and all reported having used their phone while driving, with reported usage rates varying from rarely to frequently.

            More recently, Greenberg et al.[9] reported that when compared with drivers aged 25-66 years, teenage drivers (16-18 years) detected fewer events occurring in a simulated roadway when dialling a handheld phone and had a higher lane violation rate when accessing voice mails. In addition, Schreiner et al.[10] also found, in a closed course study, that older drivers’ (mean age 57 years) ability to detect forward and peripheral events while concurrently driving and using a voice recognition system to dial phone numbers was impaired compared with their baseline performance. The younger to middle-aged drivers (mean age 23 years), however, did not demonstrate a performance decrement when interacting with the voice recognition system. Similarly, McPhee et al.[11] found that compared with the younger to middle-aged drivers (aged 17-33 years), older drivers (56-71 years were less accurate and slower at identifying target signs in a digitized image of a traffic scene when engaging in a simulated conversation (e.g., listening to and answering questions about a short paragraph). Finally, driving simulator research by Shinar et al.[12] demonstrated that older drivers’ (60-71) driving performance (e.g., speed control and lane keeping) was more adversely affected by phone conversations than that of middle-aged (30-33 years) and young, inexperienced (18-22 years) drivers. The driving performance of the young and middle-age groups when distracted was similar.

            Alice Chong was driving home from work and approaching a toll plaza when her phone rang. Without thinking twice, she reached for her phone which was in her handbag on the seat next to her. In the blink of an eye, her brand new car had ploughed into the back of a van. The price of that phone call? She was without a car for two months and her vehicle suffered extensive damage to the radiator, body work and engine. “I only took my eye off the road for a few seconds but that proved to be a very expensive lesson for me,” says Alice (not her real name), who swears never to touch the mobile phone again while driving. As the experts say, it only takes a second for an accident to happen. There is more concern now that more people seem to be texting while driving, a task labelled as “very distracting” for drivers. Out of the 73 billion messages Malaysians sent last year, one can only wonder how many were sent out while behind the wheel of a vehicle. This subject has come under close scrutiny of late in the United States, where many states have been introducing laws to ban texting while driving. This follows several major accidents linked to texting in the past few months.[13]

            There are no statistics available in Malaysia on the phenomenon but Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) director-general Prof Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah says that distracted driving contributes to out-of-control driving. This, in turn, is one of the biggest contributors to accidents. For collisions in 2007, out-of-control driving contributed to 23% (1,318 out of 5,672 cases) of fatal accidents and 14% of overall accidents (3,674 out of 27,035 cases). Dr Ahmad believes that mobile phones are one of the biggest distractions. “Phones are a major culprit even though we have laws prohibiting their use (while driving),” he says. He believes that road safety has a lot to do with prevailing culture and while the mobile phone has given us a sense of urgency, it has become a distraction. “When the phone rings, there is a compulsion that we have to pick it up. The mobile phone provides promptness but this is dangerous (when driving),” says Dr Ahmad. Dr Ahmad says studies have shown that using a hands-free device causes as much a distraction as talking on the phone. “When talking (without hands-free kit), we don’t have full control of the steering wheel and our concentration is divided between the conversation and the road.[14]

             A study by the Queensland University of Technology has found that self-assessment of driving skills among older drivers may produce an inaccurate appraisal of actual driving skills.  The study was primarily funded by the Trust with financial support from the Qld Department of Transport and Main Roads. The study involved a sample of 98 Brisbane drivers aged 65 years and over who had held a drivers licence for in excess of 50 years. “The results of this study indicated virtually no link between drivers’ assessment of their driving ability and their performance on the computer test,” Trust Chairman Professor Don Aitkin AO said.  “Furthermore, there was no relationship between the test results and their reported driving self-restriction. “In a nutshell, many of the drivers in the study were not as good as they thought they were,” Professor Aitkin said. This study suggests that self-assessment of driving ability may be a poor basis for decisions on the need for any driving self-restriction. “This study has provided yet more evidence that the hazard perception prowess of older drivers deteriorates with age,” Professor Aitkin said.  As a consequence, it is important for older drivers to ensure they are health-aware. “It is estimated that up to 23% of crashes and near-crashes are caused by driver distraction,” Trustee, Dr Angus McIntosh OAM said. This figure is likely to increase as more and more distractions, both inside and outside the vehicle, compete for driver attention.  “We are all familiar with the variety of things that can distract us while driving – be it using a mobile phone or adjusting the volume on the radio.  Given the contribution of driver distraction to road trauma, this unique resource is clearly compulsory reading for anyone interested in road safety,” Dr McIntosh said.
  
            In conclusion, we have much reviewed much of the knowledge that exists on driver distraction- what it means, theories describing its mechanisms, its effects. On the basis of the material reviewed, several conclusions can be drawn. There is converging evidence that driver distraction is significant road safety problem worldwide. Findings from the analysis of police-reported crashes, suggest that driver distraction is a contributing factor in 10% to 12% of crashes. Data from the 100-car naturalistic driving study in the United States, suggest that distraction from secondary tasks may be a contributing factor in up to 23% of crashes and near-crashes. Although estimates vary due to differences in definitions, data collection methods, and classification schemes, there is good reason to believe that all of these estimates underestimate the true scale of the problem. About one-third of all distractions appear to drive from outside the vehicle, and between about 15% and 20% involve driver interaction with technology. Distraction appears to be largely associated with rear-end crashes, same travel way or same direction crashes, single-vehicle crashes, and crashes occurring at night.

            Not all distraction is bad distraction[15]. The driver distraction issue has a flip side too. Some potentially distracting activities may have safety benefits, such as combating the effects of drowsiness or fatigue (as in the case of a truck driver using a CB radio[16]). There are also situations in which the attention of the individual in charge of the vehicle is drawn to circumstances other than its momentary control that may be beneficial for the personal safety and even survival of the driver, for example when taking hand off the wheel to parry the attack of a snake coiled on the passenger seat. The scientific, philosophical, legal, and moral issues concerning are important ones that remain to be explored. In order to avoid accident happen to our community, we need to aware and alert one another in the road safety. Although it might not happen to us, but it might be happen to our family. Don’t make the person that we love and we care a lot, has to be sacrificed. Loving is caring. So, in our caring, we will make love one another maybe as a friend just like Muhammad S.A.W with Abu Bakar, Umar, Othman, and Ali. The strong relationship will give the best ummah in the world. Before ending this article, I would like to remind all people to always be alert on the safety of the road and follow the regulations that had been made by our government. It is hoped that the knowledge provide in this article will help to prevent further tragedies of this kind from occurring.



[1] Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver Distraction, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 3, 2009.
[2] James, W., The Principles of Psychology, Holt, New York, 1890.
[3] Gladstones, W.H., Regan, M.A., and Lee, R.B., Division of attention: The single-channel hypothesis revisited, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41A, 1-17, 1989.
[4] Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver Distraction, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 218, 2009.
[5] Edquist, J., Horberry, T., Regan, M.A., and Johnston, I., Visual Clutter and external-to-vehicle driver distraction, In Faulkers, I.J., Regan, M.A., Brown, J., Sterverson, M.R., and Porter, A. (Eds.). Driver Distractions: Proceedings of an International Conference on Distracted Driving, Sydney, Australia, 2-3 June. Canberra: Australasian College of Road Safety, 2005.
[6] McKnight, A. J. and McKnight, A. S., The effect of cellular phone use upon driver attention, Accident Analysis and Prevention 25, 259-265, 1993.
[7] McCarley, J. S., Vais, M. J., Pringle, H., Kramer, A.F., Irwin, D. E., and Staryer, D. L., Conversation disrupts change detection in complex traffic scenes, Human Factors 46, 424-436, 2004.
[8] Nilsson, L. and Alm, H., Effect of Mobile Telephone Use on Elderly Drivers’ Behaviour Including Comparisons to Young Drivers’ Behaviour, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Intitute (VTI), Lingkoping, Sweden., 1991.
[9] Greenberg, J., Tijerina, L., Curry, R., Artz, B., Cathey, L., Grant, P., Koachhar, D., Kozak, K., and Blommer, M., Evaluation of driver distraction using an event detection paradigm, Journal of the Transportation Research Board No. 1843, 1-9, 2003.
[10] Schreiner, C., Blanco, M., and Hankey, J. M., Investigating the effect of performing voice recognition tasks on detection of forward and peripheral events, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 48th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Lousiana, 2004, pp. 2354-2358.
[11] McPhee, L. C., Scialfa, C. T., Dennis, W.M., Ho, G., and Caird, J.K., Age differences in visual search for traffic signs during a simulated conversation, Human Factors 46(4), 674, 2004.
[12] Shinar, D., Tractinsky, N., and Compton, R., Effects of practice, age, and task demands, on interference from a phone task while driving, Accident Analysis & Prevention 37(2), 315-326, 2005.
[13] Rashvinjeet Singh Bedi, The Star, Star Publications (Malaysia) Berhad, 2009.
[14] Rashvinjeet Singh Bedi, The Star, Star Publications (Malaysia) Berhad, 2009.
[15] Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver Distraction, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 629, 2009.
[16] Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver Distraction, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 388, 2009.