Hands Free texting & mobile phones whilst driving

[ianphampton]

Came across this article, thought it was interesting

 

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21579795-hands-free-texting-more-distracting-drivers-using-mobile-phone-keep

 

CARS, to paraphrase some in America’s gun lobby, do not kill people. People kill people. And among the people more likely than others to kill people are those distracted by their use of mobile phones and other portable electronic devices while they are driving.

Actually holding a phone to your ear while driving is illegal in many places. But not having both hands on the wheel is only part of the problem. Another part, probably more serious, is the dissipation of attention involved.

 

If further evidence of this were needed, it has just been provided in a study published by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, in Washington, DC. David Strayer and his colleagues at the University of Utah, the study’s authors, looked at exactly how distracting various mental activities are to drivers. In a world where cars are often fitted with hands-free electronic devices, what they found is worrying.

Dr Strayer divided 102 volunteers into three groups. Each participant performed eight tasks under the scrutiny of his team and while wearing an electrode-laden hat to record what is known as their Event-Related Brain Potentials (ERPs, a way of determining mental workload). The eight tasks were: doing nothing; listening to the radio; listening to an audio book; conversing with a passenger; calling a friend using a hand-held phone; calling a friend using a hands-free phone; using speech to send a text message; and, as an example of a difficult task few people engage in behind the wheel, verifying a set of mathematical equations while memorising nouns interjected between the maths problems.

The first group of volunteers performed these tasks sitting at a computer. The second sat in simulators resembling the interior of a car, and followed another car on a screen. The third drove real cars. Besides their ERPs, the volunteers’ reaction times were assessed (for example, by having the car ahead in the simulator brake suddenly), their level of concentration was tested by studying their responses to lights shone in the periphery of their visual fields, and their subjective views of which tasks demanded most attention were recorded.

Dr Strayer then consolidated these various results into a single number that represented the overall mental distraction a task created. Doing nothing provided a baseline value of 1.0 and juggling maths and word-memory (known from previous studies of human attention to be among the most mentally demanding tasks possible) provided an upper bound of 5.0.

As might be expected, listening to the radio or to a book were the least distracting activities (with scores of 1.21 and 1.75). Talking to a passenger (2.33) and talking on the phone (2.27 if hands-free and 2.45 if hand-held) were intermediate. The most distracting, at 3.06, was hands-free texting. On a scale where 5.0 is the most distracted it is possible to be, that is worryingly high.

Inattention to the road is not the only cause of traffic accidents, but it is an important one. In America, various studies have suggested that it contributes to between a quarter and a half of accidents. Those who think that hands-free texting is low on the list of potential driving hazards might therefore wish to think again.

[daveparkin]

You only need to watch the people walking along a pavement or in a shop talking or texting on their phone and crashing into objects or other people as they do so to understand why people shouldn't be doing it while driving a car....

[Ekona]

Some people are perfectly capable of operating a mobile phone safely whilst driving. However, we have to set the law for those that are not.

 

I drove around for years using a mobile whilst driving, never had an accident once. Never came close either, mainly because I'm capable of doing more than one thing at a time.

[ioneabee]

^^

apparently that only applies to the female of the species as (according to my wife) they can multi-task - men can't - simples

[ilogikal1]

Some people are perfectly capable of operating a mobile phone safely whilst driving. However, we have to set the law for those that are not.

 

I drove around for years using a mobile whilst driving, never had an accident once. Never came close either, mainly because I'm capable of doing more than one thing at a time.

 

Maybe you just didn't notice.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ekona]

Quite possible, I know you said it in jest but it's a fair comment.

 

It's true though, some people can drive and fiddle with the radio happily, some struggle just to stay in a straight line.

[Jetpilot]

^^

apparently that only applies to the female of the species as (according to my wife) they can multi-task - men can't - simples

 

Very true, women are very good at multi tasking, they can talk and p*ss you off at the same time

 

About 4 years ago i got stopped for being on the phone, a Sunday winter morning, 9 am without a soul on the road, apart from a unmarked police car pulling up to a roundabout i was going round (i didnt notice) After following me for a couple of miles, where i indicated, negotiated another roundabout and then pulled into a car park (auto car by the way) they pulled up next to me, after a chat and a fixed penalty etc i asked him, was my driving bad, no absolutely fine was the answer.