Reno school in report saying drivers too distracted through school zones

From RGJ.com:

One in six American drivers are distracted as they drive through school zones, according to a report from a non-profit group that promotes ways to protect children.

Pine Middle School in Reno was one of 20 schools used nationally in the survey by Safe Kids and the safety was slightly better there than the national average, said Melissa Krall, Safe Kids Washoe County coordinator.

Krall was one the people out counting drivers for the 40,000 surveys used for the report released Wednesday. Some things surprised her.

“They were being conscious as they came through the school zone with their kid, but they turned to the distractions like cell phone use or eating as soon as they dropped their kids off,” Krall said.

She saw drivers with multiple distractions, such as reaching for something in the vehicle while holding coffee.

“You wonder at that point how to concentrate on the road at all,” she said

And drivers were more likely to be distracted in the afternoon pick up than the morning drop off, she said.

“I personally expected people to be more distracted in the morning with people eating in the car,” Krall said. But in the afternoon, “families are in a hurry to get to soccer
practice, to get home and do homework, to get to the grocery store. There’s just a lot of natural distractions every day in life.”

Women were 21 percent more likely to be distracted than men, the report said. The most distracted drivers were women driving trucks, sport utility vehicles or minivans. The least distracted drivers were men in cars.

The most common distractions were cell phones or other electronics, followed by eating, drinking or smoking, then reaching or looking behind the seat, then grooming and finally reading.