Are back seat drivers driving you to distraction?

Have backseat drivers ever effected you? - Courtesy of bridalcookie.com

Forget smart phones and iPads, there’s a new kind of distraction that’s causing us to fork out for unwanted accidents for motorists and company car drivers! “The lights are red!”, “You should overtake, there’s plenty of space” – Back seat drivers, don’t we love them! Although our friendly passengers are only trying to help a survey by confused.com has revealed that two thirds (66%) of British motorists are effected by back seat drivers and almost 1 in 4 have been in an accident due to the distraction of other people in their vehicle. So how much are these unhelpful co-pilots costing us? The survey also revealed that 1 in 5 motorists has forked out up to £500 to repair damage after pesky passengers have taken their focus off the road.

The worst culprits to cause a crash with unhelpful comments are our partners. So does this mean insurance companies will not be checking your marital status when you sign up to insure with them? And even though we all know back seat driving is dangerous and a pain a huge 92% have still admitted to doing it. Although we stereotype women as typically worse drivers it is actually men who were more likely to take their eyes off the road to talk to passengers at 47% rather than women at  38%! We constantly remind drivers of how dangerous eating at the wheel, or paying more attention to your CD player can be but back seat drivers are actually more distracting than both of these actions put together –

Top Distractions

: Eating or drinking 20%

:Changing music 27%

:Backseat drivers 51%

So how can we tackle this issue? Should insurance companies charge more for those using their vehicle regularly to transport more than one passengers? do we need a crash course in how to ignore those around us? or maybe a crash course in how to be a good passenger? If you’ve got something to say about this topic we’d love you to share your views in the comment box below 🙂