Not too many years ago the biggest problem with vehicle accidents was usually driving while impaired. People got drunk or took too many drugs, and tried to get behind the wheel of a car or truck anyway.

Predictably, this often led to a serious crash — and maybe a fatality. That’s still a challenge, but a new cause is becoming more and more prominent.

It’s called distracted driving — not paying attention to the road but instead looking at a smartphone or a navigation system, or maybe just fiddling with the radio or trying to eat a meal. When drivers take their eyes of what’s in front of them, all kinds of bad things could happen, from running off the road to hitting someone or something ahead.

And the numbers show that this serious problem is getting worse. Deaths and injuries related to distracted driving have increased in the past two years, and much of that period covered the worst days of the pandemic, when people were driving a lot less than usual.

That’s tragic, and it doesn’t have to be so bad.

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and this would be a good time for all Americans to resolve to make sure they aren’t part of the next statistic.

All too often, distracted driving is caused by that marvelous invention called the smartphone. It can be hard to pry yourself away from that screen while you’re driving, but if you don’t you could deeply regret it.

If you truly need to check your phone, at least pull off to the side of the road and put your emergency flashers on — or even better, find a parking lot. Some people simply turn off their phones when they are driving to make sure no one calls them — or they get tempted to look at their phones. There is no phone call or text that can’t wait a few minutes until you reach your destination and turn your phone on.

And if the phone rings while you’re driving, there’s no law that says you have to answer it. You can let it go to voice mail. It’s illegal to text while driving in some states, such as New York, where the fine you face for a simple violation could be the least of your worries if you run into something while looking at that screen.

You can easily avoid that, just by focusing on the road in front of you every second you are driving. It will help you get there safely, and no one can argue with that goal.

— Tribune News Service