People tend to think of time spent driving as wasted, and try to use it to multitask, most commonly by talking on the phone. I know people who specifically use the time driving to catch up on their phone calls. While most people know (or should know) that using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is not a good idea (and it is banned in some states and countries), many have the impression that using hands-free devices (as many cars have now) is safe. But that is not true. There has been considerable research to show that hands-free devices are as distracting to drivers, making them as dangerous to use. This article summarizes the research.
There is no better example of cognitive distraction than distracted driving, which is where the rubber literally touches the road. While behind the wheel of a car, a significant level of distraction can accompany one action in particular: phone usage. For some, this can result in severe driving impairment. It represents a serious danger hidden within the connective rhythms of our everyday lives.
Safety advocates go further and argue that even hands-free versions of calling, texting and internet usage while driving can be dangerous. And yet, it is possible to infer the opposite from the world around us. For example, those laws that ban handheld phones simultaneously allow for hands-free phone usage behind the wheel, perhaps implying that this is a safe thing to do. What’s more, the dashboards of contemporary cars are built with the expectation that drivers will be using their phones.
…During the past three decades, research in the field of cognitive science on this topic has yielded a core finding: both handheld and hands-free phone conversations are associated with a similar dangerous level of driving impairment. This body of research is extensive enough to be the subject of multiple meta-analyses and reviews over the years. These core findings appear in epidemiological studies that contrast things like phone records and hospital and accident data. They also show up in simulator and test-track experiments.
Simulator studies reveal associations between phone conversation and decreased situational awareness, as well as dangerous increases in driver reaction times to changing road conditions. Even ‘naturalistic’ studies that utilise in-cab videos of real-world driving are now able to confirm these dangers because the datasets have finally grown large enough to include information on real accidents.
…If hands-free calls have been found to be just as distracting as handheld calls, then the ‘hands-free phones’ at issue are things like your phone’s speakerphone functionality, or the use of a hands-free headset. However, these findings should apply equally to making hands-free calls from your car’s dashboard system, which can be paired with your smartphone. Despite what your car’s infotainment system might imply, there are serious risks associated with making these kinds of calls. Just because your dashboard touchscreen or steering wheel has a button allowing you to make calls, doesn’t mean this is a safe practice.
Of course, it should go without saying that other uses of these technologies are even worse, and yet many people still use them.
The ways that drivers can become distracted by connective technologies is not only limited to sending messages, making calls or using digital assistants. Some people use the internet in other ways while behind the wheel. A survey of more than 2,000 people released by AT&T in 2015 found that more than a quarter browsed online while driving, more than 15 per cent took and posted selfies, and 10 per cent used videochat. And this kind of internet usage while driving appears to be steadily increasing: in 2010, 17 per cent of those surveyed admitted to it. By 2020, that number had jumped to 36 per cent.
I have known about this research for a long time and even though my car has hands-free phone capability, I refuse to use it unless I am parked. If I get a call while driving, I either ignore it or, if I think it may be important, pull over to the side when it is safe to do so, and then call that person back. I have never received a call where the extra time taken do do this turned out to be critical. If I am not driving but get a call and discover that the person calling is doing so while driving, I politely end the call, telling them to call me later when they are not driving because I do not want to be a contributing factor to an accident. I am not sure if they stop the practice in general or think of me as some kind of crank and only avoid calling me from their phone, while continuing to do so with other people. I suspect that it is often the latter because people are so devoted to their phones.
While there has been much publicity about the dangers of using hand-held devices while driving, there is little publicity given to the fact that hands-free devices are no better. It may be that people are so wedded to using them that they just do not want to hear that they they should not, nor publicize the truth about the dangers. And things are going to get worse.
Technological development isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. In fact, it’s likely to throw more distracting technologies our way, each allowing more seamless ways to connect with the world. But, as research shows, our brains can’t multitask effectively. Human beings are simply not capable of reliably processing multiple demands at the same time. Our cognitive limits are real, and so are the bad habits we form with our devices. In the end, it’s up to us – drivers, and users of connective technologies – to put safety over connectivity. The simplest solution? Accept that you’re not as good at multitasking as you might think, and keep your focus where it belongs: on the road.
I wish everyone would follow that advice in the last sentence.
People think they are great at multitasking when they simply are not. It is much better, and faster, to do things sequentially than to shift between different things.
This seems relevant:
Of course, more than half of traffic accidents are caused by eating in the car, but not one state has banned drive-through restaurants. The difference, of course, is that banning cell phone usage while driving doesn’t threaten anyone’s bottom line, while banning drive-throughs would seriously cut into the pocket books of numerous corporate donors.
The government is always willing to step in and save lives as long as it doesn’t inconvenience corporate America.
@ 2 Michael Suttkus
Of course, more than half of traffic accidents are caused by eating in the car
Do you have a citation for this?
I find it hard to believe. On the other hand, like Mano I have known about the phone use in the car research for a long time, for maybe 20 years.
Thanks for the clip VolcanoMan. Although I was a professional driver in my early life, I’ve been happily car-free for over 20 years. I hate having to waste so much attention and brain cycles constantly monitoring all the moving objects in my vicinity instead just chilling out and enjoying the scenery. Buses, trains and planes get me pretty much anywhere I need to go and only rarely need to rent a car to go somewhere. Life is less stressful and my wallet is healthier.
Time to time I’m following another driver, and notice that their behaviour changes: later braking or indicating, driving closer to the vehicle in front of them, or (to make it really obvious) suddenly not overtaking a slower vehicle having previously been making good progress.
Then, a few minutes later, it’s back to normal.
It’s like briefly following a drunk driver whose ability to steer isn’t impaired. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That problem has already been solved with FSD (full self driving)! Thanks, Elon! /s
And speaking of Tesla, isn’t the CyberTruck one of the worst offenders when it comes to touchscreen controls for basic driving functions?
So true about many things in our lives — poor diet, intoxicating drugs, excessive couch-sitting, social media, etc.
FSD: quite the misnomer.
It’s not solely itself, it’s not anywhere near full, and it’s only driving if you redefine the word to include occasionally making a right mess of it.
But, yeah, solved so we can definitely concentrate on that phone call because the car won’t interrupt.
Have any of you experienced friends calling you while on the road, hoping you’ll entertain them? This has happened to me a number of times over the past decade.
Just before Thanksgiving this year, a friend was making an 8-hour drive and expected me to spend my day talking to her to keep her entertained. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, and I find it quite rude. I have things I do with my time especially right before a holiday, and hanging on the phone entertaining someone so they aren’t bored isn’t one of them. It’s also dangerous to anyone else on the road.
We’ve all been on the road and seen people randomly slowing down, speeding up, and wildly veering over the lane markers. They’re always on the phone. I don’t want to be the cause of someone driving on the phone killing someone through inattention.
It is hilarious that early cellphones came along with the cars. If you have seen the film La Mariachi you will recall the boss gangster trying to contact the people in the new car but no one has written down the phone number to the car yet.
phone calls while driving is distracting. research shows it.
what about conversations with passengers? those have got to be distracting too.
ban passengers!
@Robbo: conversations with people in the car are less distracting because the passenger is aware of road conditions as well and stop talking when appropriate.
Robbo @#11,
Katydid @#12 is right. They have tested this. Passengers in a car stop talking when the driver brakes or swerves or otherwise does something that requires their full attention. The person on the phone will continue to talk. A paper that was linked to in the article I quoted has the following: “The results indicate that passenger conversations differ from cell phone conversations because the surrounding traffic not only becomes a topic of the conversation, helping driver and passenger to share situation awareness, but the driving condition also has a direct influence on the complexity of the conversation, thereby mitigating the potential negative effects of a conversation on driving.”
Another linked paper finds something similar: “Driving performance suffered during cell phone and remote passenger conversations as compared with in-car passenger conversations and no-conversation controls in terms of their approach speeds, reaction times, and avoidance of road and traffic hazards. Of particular interest was the phenomenon of conversation suppression, the tendency for passengers to slow their rates of conversation as the driver approached a hazard. On some occasions these passengers also offered alerting comments, warning the driver of an approaching hazard. Neither conversation suppression nor alerting comments were present during cell phone conversations.”
Maybe each car should have the means to jam the cell phone signal while the wheels are moving.
AI solution: fry the driver with 10.000 volts if he uses the phone by driving. It will speed up the great replacement (of humans).
Final comment:
My personal impression is that the remote caller is quite likely to ask about something that requires recall, or place/situation memory. After all, they rang for a reason. This engages far more of my brain than when an in-car passenger talks about the things that we both can see or know about. Maybe just me, but I will fail miserably at way-finding in an unfamiliar place if someone calls me at the wrong moment.
I form this zero-data personal impression from when an in-car passenger asks me to recall something and I find it distracting — except at least it’s easier to say “hang on, no idea, I’m concentrating on [this or that thing that we can both see].”
@Katydid and Mano:
thanks!
i always wondered if that was the case, and why i only read about cell phones being a distraction.
(i suppose i could have googled it years ago…i don’t drive 24/7…)
@14: I have often wished there was a way to block cellphone signals while the car was on. Also in the movie theater while the movie is playing, in fitness class, etc. etc. If someone can’t function for an hour without their phone, they’re welcome to step outside and bother nobody else.
The data I have seen disagree, showing handheld phone conversations to be considerably more detrimental to driving than handsfree; the remaining debate seem to lie in how close handsfree conversations are to in-person conversation.
#12 Katydid
The passenger is always aware of road conditions, and always shuts up? The conversation is never an argument, or flirting, or other attention-grabbing thing? Over generalisation.
#14
I set mine to silent, and as it is usually not in my pocket while driving, I can’t feel the vibration and so only find out someone tried to contact me after the fact.
[oops, I appear to have used a instead of i in what was intended to be an italics start tag!]
[I corrected it -- Mano]
@3 jrkrideau
No, I cannot! It’s a widely quoted claim, with about a billion personal injury lawyers making the claim, so I probably picked it up somewhere, but I can’t find any studies presenting the data so plainly.
Here are the best numbers I can find: https://www.nhtsa.gov/book/countermeasures-that-work/distracted-driving/understanding-problem
Here’s an anecdote about something I noticed.
I was driving last night when it was raining, two risk factors for accidents. I had two friends in the car and we were chatting. I noticed that whenever I had to make some kind of maneuver, such as changing lanes or if the car ahead braked causing me to slow down, my friends instinctively would stop talking while I was doing it.
@katydid @12
This doesn’t work with 2 squabbling kids. Anecdotally it also hasn’t worked when my spouse and I have tried to resolve unresolved issues that have been unresolved for over a decade.
The above is partly, but not completely in jest , I hate taking calls from the car and it is incredibly distracting even with hands free- but with commute times and multi country-timezone teams its either conference call in the car or be in office by 07:00 am. Thankfully the pandemic ended my commute.