With the arrival of April many may think that spring has arrived. They should also be aware that April is Driving Awareness month. Accordingly, it is worthwhile for people to take a few minutes to thing about distracted driving and things they can do to prevent it.

Driving while engaging in a distracting activity is a problem for drivers of all ages throughout the nation, That said, a recent study shines a light on teens engaging in that activity. One of the distracted driving activities that gets a lot of attention is texting while driving.

According to a study that was commissioned by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a total of 75 percent of the teen respondents said that they had seen someone else engage in the activity while driving. Thirty percent said that they themselves had texted while behind the wheel.

Other distractions teen drivers were engaged in include:

• Smoking
• Singing or dancing
• Applying makeup
• Fixing hair
• Reading
• Changing clothes

The information collected in the study was gathered via cameras that were installed in the vehicles of teen drivers. They were not on all of the time. Instead, when a driver crashed, took a corner too fast or crashed, they turned on capturing the activities.

While as we stated earlier this is an issue throughout the nation, crashes in the state of Pennsylvania, in which the drivers are under the age of 20 have been declining over the course of the past few years. Though statistics are not available for 2014, between the years of 2009 and 2013, the number of fatal crashes involving teen drivers fell by 13, to 27.

The decrease is definitely good news. It is likely of little comfort to those impacted by the distracted driving accidents that did occur however. In those situations it is possible that a personal injury lawsuit was pursued.