ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) – A new report from the Georgia Office of Highway Safety underscores the importance of putting down your phone, turning off the radio and focusing on the conditions around you.

According to a report, 53% of all accidents are caused by inattentive drivers.

Distracted driving is defined in the Georgia Traffic Safety Fact Sheet as the driver’s distraction from driving and distraction from something else. Most people associate phones with distracted driving, but this study shows that it can be anything that can visually, manually or cognitively distract the driver.

According to the Georgia Traffic Safety Fact Sheet, 13% of people killed or seriously injured in a confirmed distraction-related crash were pedestrians or bicyclists.

But distracted driving doesn’t just affect those directly involved and their families. Sometimes it also affects innocent people who get caught in the crossfire.

A video from Dougherty County shows an Albany police patrol car “ignoring the right of way and ramming the left front of a broken-down county bus,” causing 67-year-old pedestrian Robert Skaggs to be struck and killed by the bus.

The officer was not charged with careless driving, but he admitted that he was “attempting to prevent a burglary” at the time of the accident.

26% of all car accidents caused by distraction involved drivers between the ages of 15 and 24.

Ryan Jewel was 18 when he was accused of texting while driving. He ran a stop sign at an intersection and rammed the truck carrying Kalvin and Wesley Hubbard. Wesley died at the scene of the accident and Kalvin died five weeks later.

Jewel was sentenced to six months in the Dougherty County Jail, followed by 20 years probation.

So this data tells us that not all distractions while driving are related to the phone. You can stare at a sign too long while driving, miss the red light, and still race through the intersection while changing the music on the Apple Play device in your car.

Driving is serious business and driving without attention is dangerous.

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