Posted on 11/22/2005 5:14:37 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
ROADSIDE distractions ranging from advertisements featuring scantily-clad women to Christmas lights are ruining motorists' concentration, with a quarter admitting to veering out of their lane while driving.
A survey of 2,000 adults in the UK showed that one in four had admitted veering out of their lane because their attention had wandered to an off-road object.
Advertisements, flashing signs and Christmas decorations caused a third of motorists to lose concentration, the poll found.
Many motorists said that they were distracted for up to five seconds, which equates to the length of a football pitch if the car was travelling at 60mph.
Male drivers were more likely to be distracted by scantily-clad women on advertisements than women were to pictures of scantily-clad men, the study found.
Ian Parker, of Privilege Insurance, which conducted the poll, said: "It appears that the development of new technologies, products and advertising techniques is getting in the way of road safety.
"The implications of the increase in eye-catching roadside objects such as illuminating signs has not been monitored until today."
Dr Mark Young, an expert in transport at Brunel University, commented: "While we know a lot more about in-vehicle distractions such as mobile phones, there is a growing body of concern about the lack of any coherent strategy for arranging roadside furniture."
So where is the obligatory picture so we can determine whether these billboards would cause us to veer from our lanes?
How long have Scotsmen been complaining about near-naked women?
I thought it was sheared sheep that caused them to veer.
Beat me to it...I really need to draw my own conclusion about this issue. I do not feel I've done enough research.
Aussies would never complain about such things!
(Hi, Cuz! Happy American Turkey Day to you!)
No...you're thinking of New Zealanders!
We certainly would not!
Is it Thanksgiving today? If so, have a gobble for me!
Thursday = Turkey
Friday = pepto
I'm not sure what "pepto" is..but I hope you won't need too much of it!
Alka Seltzer?
They didn't poll Anglican clergy apparently...
Poms are Poms. What more can we expect of them? ;-p
NOW I gotcha!
But are Scots Poms as well? I think there have been a couple of wars fought over this question...
The survey was done "throughout the UK" so there will be plenty of Englishmen interviewed. Besides, the Poms include everyone in Great Britain and Scotland is now even more nutty left-leaning than English and quite explicitly anti-American - take George Galloway for example.
Scots are probably reasserting their long-suppressed Auld Alliance gene - they are acting thinking and acting like the French these days, although the English and Welsh aren't too far behind as well.
So THAT'S why Ted Kennedy drove off the bridge........
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