The group estimates that 25-50 percent of the roughly 6 million crashes each year are caused by distracted drivers. Since then, Boutwell said, he has been more wary of the risks posed by stopping along high-speed roadways. He was like a foot off that line. He had no concept of the danger he was putting himself in. I called 911 and told Columbia County to get a policeman to come behind him and turn his lights on.
Some unlucky drivers break down, suffer flat tires and run out of gas.
But other cars jet past with their drivers talking on cell phones, adjusting radios, eating fast food, applying makeup, perhaps even driving drunk or dozing off at the wheel. Straggling motorists who pull off busy highways and park near the flow of traffic may be toying with their life expectancies, safety officials warn. They might take their eye off the road for a second, they might swerve over just a little, and that's all it takes. Most of 1998's roadside victims were sitting in cars when the collisions occurred, with only 472 on foot or on bicycles. Last year, novelist Stephen King suffered multiple bone fractures and a collapsed lung when a van struck him as he was walking along a road shoulder in Maine.