Driving While Distracted More Dangerous Than Supposed 418
Science News reports on recent research indicating that any kind of multitasking while driving is dangerous. Not just the obvious distraction of juggling a cell phone, but even talking to a passenger or listening to a book on tape. The researchers used a driving simulator inside an MRI machine to measure brain activations. "Attending to what someone says galvanizes language-related brain areas while simultaneously reducing activity in spatial regions that coordinate driving behavior. This finding suggests that people who combine relatively automatic tasks, such as speech comprehension and car driving, exceed a biological limit on the amount of systematic brain activity they can accommodate at one time, the researchers propose. As a result, the less-ingrained skill — in this case, driving, which is learned long after a person grasps a native language — takes a neural hit."
I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps what this really is is more evidence that we should automate as much about driving as is possible.
Multitasking test (Score:5, Interesting)
While I'm sure everyone's driving ability decreases when multitasking, I don't think it does at the same level.
They need to have a multitasking test to qualify drivers to do certain things, and everyone else be blocked. I mean this in a joking way, but if I ruled the world I'd make it that way
The biggest problem is enforcement. Of course, a police officer can always pull you over for unsafe driving, even if you're not multitasking. But there needs to be some sort of citizen-level enforcement.
Some way to point a radio-id-tag tracker and zap another car and comment on how it's driving (weaving in traffic, distracted while on the phone, going the limit in the fast lane with two other lanes open, etc.).
Don't take one person's word for it, wait for a couple dozen complaints - they'll come fast enough - and then yank all their driving privleges, or limit them to driving with no other multitasking going on.
Ah, only in Jason-land
Sound quality has an effect, yes/no? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can testify (Score:5, Interesting)
When I'm driving with a passenger and conversing with them, I seem to only be able to actually focus on one of those tasks at a time.
If I am concentrating on the road, I've noticed that I tend to block out the passenger. Sometimes what the passenger says will get processed a good 5 seconds or so later when I'm in safer circumstances (straight driving in my lane). And if I'm instead thinking about what the occupant is saying, I will tend to miss turns that I know full well I need to take.
During any of this, however, I am driving fairly well. I have never had an accident in my 14 years on the road. But my brain is apparently focusing its full cognitive abilities on the road and traffic, but leaves little else to work with in that regard.
You can either tell me how your day went, or we can get to the restaurant. But they are somewhat mutually exclusive.
Re:Multitasking test (Score:5, Interesting)
So here she is... having everything her way (having to choose between Harvard and Yale) and suddenly she is facing the awesome responsibility of killing two individuals through neglect... something that was preventable.
Yeah... these stories are anecdotal... never-the-less one may learn from others bad judgments and experiences.
The couple are dead. She is brilliant having taken calculus in the 7th grade... and yet her cleverness can not restore these two humans back to life.
It will haunt her for her entire life.
Listening to audio books. (Score:5, Interesting)
So I certainly agree with TFA that we can't multitask listening to speech and driving. But I think they are 100% wrong to assume that the driving (being the "newer" skill) is the thing that suffers. To the contrary - I think we're sufficiently adaptable to drop out the least important task.
That may be different with live humans (eg a passenger or cellphone) - but for audio books, TFA is clearly wrong.
Re:Not completely straight-forward (Score:4, Interesting)
It gets so bad that sometimes I arrive at a destination I wasn't intending to simply because that's my most common route, and when on auto-pilot my brain just goes where it usually does.
I've done this during rush hour traffic even. Clearly, some part of my brain is able to function without much higher level control and avoid accidents, and pay attention to traffic, and signs and lights, and everything else. All while my conscious mind is somewhere else.
Is this unsafe? I don't know.. I've never been in an accident because of it. The few accidents i've had have been the fault of others (getting rear-ended while at a stop light, etc..)
I *DO* find my driving is worse when i'm talking to someone in the car, because this is not a common practice. Talking to someone on the Cell Phone, i'm typically more paranoid about my driving, over compensating even for my distractedness by ensuring to leave enough room at all times to react.
I think Most people who are distracted drives don't drive defensively (or offensively).
And yet... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I have to disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
I drove 3 hours a day for 4 years. About 6 months into this I started listening to books on tape, and I found my alertness level while driving was improved significantly. When I was just listening to the radio or my ipod, and it was the same stuff I've heard a thousand times before, my mind drifted. When I started keeping my mind awake and aware with audiobooks, I found I was surprised by traffic around me much less often.
I touted this to several coworkers who also had long drives, and collectively we all agreed: audiobooks keep your mind more active, and increase your overall awareness of arising traffic situations, we found ourselves in fewer close calls and surprised by things around us less often.
Re:I have to disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I can testify (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally think there are two layers of processing for driving. Because if I'm distracted I will make navigation decisions automatically -- e.g. e.g. as you described... failing to make turns I know I need to make. but also, for example, if I'm coming out of my house, I'll make turns as if I'm going to work instead of the actual destination.
My driving itself doesn't suffer though, I maintain a safe distance, and speed, follow the lights, react to obstacles, and other events, make shoulder checks and so forth, even when making the wrong turn.
So I can drive just fine while distracted, I just can't navigate.
I suspect its sort of like walking. Our 'subconscious' brains can cope with the balance issues, the stepping forward issues, and can handle the general safety issues of distance and obstacles. And it will elevate any events of note to interrupt our conscious brains to handle.
However, our subconscious doesn't know where we're going so it will just keep going 'forwards' unless our conscious brain directs otherwise.
Re:I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Banning regular cell-phone talk in cars is not going to do much to improve safety.
I'm blowing several moderations I've made to write this, but I think it has to be said: the research shows (beyond any reasonable doubt, and in plentiful quantities) that driving while using any mobile phone (hand-held or hands-free, the statistics are near-identical) is worse for safety than driving several times over the legal blood alcohol limit in most jurisdictions.
Now, you can act on this information in spectacularly the wrong way: the UK introduced a law to ban only hand-held phones, leading to the false impression that hands-free is safe and a rush of marketing implying that from hands-free vendors. The authorities then failed to enforce the new law anyway, to the extent that almost all drivers who admit to using a mobile illegally in studies also say it's because they don't think there's any serious risk of getting caught. That's hardly a deterrent, and in implicitly supporting the use of hands-free (which has near-identical danger stats, remember), if anything it has made things worse.
But there is no doubt that viewing use of a mobile phone while driving in the same socially unacceptable light as driving while drunk or high should be a good thing for road safety in the long run. Whether the correct answer to this is to make new laws, or simply to run a public awareness campaign to tell people the facts (how many people have you seen on Slashdot claiming, probably quite sincerely, that they can drive just fine while using a phone?), is open to debate.
Re:Highway hypnosis is even more dangerous (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:3, Interesting)
I accidentally hit "Submit" instead of "Preview" before I had a chance to finish checking for errors. I meant to say that I do not do that very often, even when driving in light traffic. I should also add that I am in my mid-50s and have never had an accident.
I do not like how many of the newer cars have complicated electronics which encourage me to take my eyes off the road when driving. Back in the 1970s, my cars few controls were all large easy to find knobs, buttons and levers. Of course, I could easily find them without looking and hardly even thinking.
I was once ridding with my 2nd cousin, as she circled a major airport in rush hour traffic while talking on her cell phone to her boss and also trying to send him a fax from her laptop, all at once. That was way too much multitasking, especially for rush hour traffic.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Training required to deal with distractions (Score:3, Interesting)
Pilots manage a vehicle in 3 dimensions, with no marked paths or lanes. Their aircraft will fall out of the sky if speed is not managed. At the same time they need to make constant radio calls to inform tower, controller or circuit traffic of their position, and follow instructions or rules on where they should be. The difference is that they are trained to manage all the tasks much more thoroughly than drivers are. They're not taught to occassionally glance at their instruments the way a driver is. They're taught to scan them constantly. They're not taught nothing about how to communicate with the tower - they're taught to aviate, navigate and communicate prioritizing in that order.
What we need is to train drivers to handle the distraction. Want to see if the distraction is going to make them worse. Well first give them some experience dealing with the distraction and give them some guidelines on how to deal with it so they can practice. Only then should they be tested on how safe they are.
This idea that we can somehow eliminate all distractions and make driving safer and that we should all feel guilty otherwise is nonsense. In the real world, distractions will happen. Kids will fight in the back seat. (correctly dealt with by either pulling over or ignoring them). The radio, conversations, and books on tape are distractions that we need to teach drivers to deal with (it should be part of the practical driving exam). Other distractions are unacceptablet because they take full concentration and should be banned. Anything that takes your eyes off the road for more than a second would fall under this category. So changing a radio station should still be permitted but watching a dvd or texting should not.
The trouble is in this risk adverse society common sense has been thrown out the window and has been replace with scaremongering and guilt. Moronic!
Re:I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I have to disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Things which I couldn't have helped noticing before because they would have made themselves known to me eventually if I had missed them.
Re:I have to disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I have to disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
I was once being driven by someone who turned her head directly at me and asked me "Why do you always criticize my driving?" *Boom* - she rearended the guy in front of her. Thank god it was low speed in a parking lot.
The precedent has been set. Nearly all people drive OK when they've been drinking, some don't with catastrophic consequences and now it's illegal for everyone. If you can justify criminal penalties when driving while drunk (which is reasonable, in my opinion, though not the way it's being enforced now), then similar distractions ought to bear the same penalties. Be consistent!
I lived near a women's college when I lived in Tokyo. The only time my health was in danger on the sidewalks was from students riding bicycles while talking on cell phones and smoking at the same time.
The only time I've ever been responsible for an accident was when I was driving with a Big Gulp between my legs and I squeezed the cup a bit too hard and soda spurted out over my lap. Dang. If it had been McDonald's coffee, I'd have been a millionaire.
While I'm happy that you think books on tape might have helped your driving, it's really the same confidence people have when driving drunk.
Re:I have to disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
No, of course not. If it did, it'd be because you were concentrating on the words and not on driving, but because the book is providing enough 'background' distraction, you end up shutting it out and find that you stop distracting yourself.
An example: a student once walked into a professor's office and was made to wait, and he started fidgiting and fidgiting, barely unasble to stand still. The professor told him to count the books on the wall behind him, and the student calmed down completely.
The reason: left to yourself with (apparently) nothing to do, your mind wanders all over the shop. Give it a little task to do and it remains settled. A lot of people find music to be better as words tend to make people listen too hard to them - ie, if you want to concentrate on something, wordless music is better than the radio that interrupts every so often to speak to you. You will always change focus when that happens.
So yeah, your audiobook isn't surprising to help you drive better.
Re:I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Training required to deal with distractions (Score:4, Interesting)
Think about driving on the highway. You're driving along at 75MPH at a minimal safe distance from the guy in front of you. He slams on his brakes. You have at best perhaps three or four seconds to slam on yours, and that's assuming that your minimal safe distance is larger than is typical and that your braking system is at least as powerful as his. There are many other situations when driving a car where you only have a second or two to react. A small twitch of the steering wheel can send your car straight into a concrete pillar.
Flying, on the other hand, is much slower and more cerebral. There are very few events which require immediate reactions. An engine failure on takeoff comes to mind, and other major mechanical failures, as well as suddenly spotting someone nearby on a collision course. But these are all extremely rare events. For most of the trip on most flights, nothing happens which the pilot can't stop and think about for ten seconds first. For the phases of the flight which are really critical in this respect, such as takeoff and landing, the FAA enforces a sterile cockpit rule which basically says that all non-essential communications should be avoided, precisely because of this problem.
Ultimately I don't think pilots deal with this particularly better than drivers do. It's just that if a pilot is distracted for five seconds it basically never matters, whereas a driver being distracted for five seconds is likely to kill a whole bunch of people.
One thing that pilots do better and are trained to do better is to actively eliminate distractions. If you ever fly in a small plane, try asking the pilot a bunch of inane questions during some important task, such as landing. If he's any good, he'll tell you to be quiet and ask him again on the ground. If this attitude carries over to driving then he will be a safer driver, not because he can deal with distractions but because he can prioritize and is willing to stop them when he's in a position where he can't deal with them.
And yes, I am a pilot. One of the things I love about flying is how it doesn't demand that twitchy reflexive on-top-of-my-game attitude that safe driving requires.
Re:I have to disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in a rural area, so I find driving in the city a bit of a pain, and quite stressful. Once I start to get a lot of cars sharing the road with me as I get into the city, I find the radio really irritating and have to turn it off, and my mind doesn't wander at all.
My best theory for this is that having some music or something going occupied the part of my mind that would otherwise lead me to a lack of concentration on the task at hand, but once the task at hand got more complicated, I needed that part of my brain too so I'd have to turn the music off.
In the last few years I have gotten a car kit for my mobile phone, and am quite aware of how distracting that is, so I try and keep conversations short (eg I'll call you when I reach my destination) or just pull over. Maybe that's just me though, some people claim that it doesn't distract them at all.
I wonder how much variation there is to the effect of distraction on people...
Re:I have to disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking from experience... driving on most amphetamines is a REALLY bad idea. Overconfidence, other effects of the drug not directly related to the "pick me up" (e.g. the very minor hallucinogenic effects of MDMA), and physical jitteriness are all things that cause problems for operating a vehicle.
That said, it's still probably better than driving while extra-ordinarily tired (to the point that you're falling asleep at the wheel).
Oh, and as a tangent, also from experience, driving on actual hallucinogens is also REALLY REALLY bad (although I guess that's probably obvious).
Re:I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're living here in Germany, which I guess from your statements, I should point out that having lived in both Australia and Germany, you're right about the general skill of drivers, and the accident rates. However, while you're also right that it's far more expensive to get a license here in Germany (a process I'm going through at the moment, since Germany won't do an "exchange" of an Australian license), it's actually MUCH quicker. To go from "unlicensed" to "full license" in Australia takes around 3 and a half years with various restrictions at the different "levels" along the way.
The Australian system however does not make for better drivers - even after all the rigamarole, most of them are still pretty terrible. (although, it does vary a lot by city - Sydneysiders drive fast, and it scares people from elsewhere, but in general, I'd far rather drive in Sydney than Melbourne, where many people drive slower, but seem to have NO idea how to use their brakes properly, change lanes, or park.
An interesting tangent that I've noted is the relationship in countries between driving age and drinking age. In countries where you are allowed alcohol BEFORE you are allowed to operate a vehicle (e.g. Most of Europe), there seem to be a loss less alcohol related driving incidents than countries where you are allowed to drive well before you're allowed to drink (e.g. Australia or US). I put it down to the fact that young drivers in such countries become familiar with the effects of alcohol and are still not confident with driving, so are aware of how scary it would be to drive a car under the influence. But in the other countries (where you can drive first), young people think they are great drivers (having had a couple of years experience) and are not yet that familiar with the effects of alcohol, so are more likely to underestimate its effects when they get behind the wheel.
Re:I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:3, Interesting)
Trying to turn corners with one hand while fiddling with the gear shifter is easily as dangerous as a phone.
That's... hilarious. I suppose you've never driven a stick. When turning left on a very large intersection, do you actually stay in first gear the entire duration of your turn? I don't believe it -- most cars would be red-lining by that point.
Shifting into second during a turn is perfectly normal. If you can't figure out how to do it, it means you suck at driving stick, not that it's an unsafe thing to do.
Re:I'm all for a certain amount of regulation... (Score:3, Interesting)
About your observation regarding alcohol related accidents I must mention that Germany was just ranked 2nd in an EU-wide study regarding drunk drivers. I don't remember who was first, but it was some small eastern country which joined the EU recently. The problem over here seems to be that so many people are quite well at driving in non-normal states. I don't really know if I'd like to appreciate or condemn it. One side of me says it can't be good that a huge percentage of drivers is piss drunk at any time, the other side says it works, so there's no reason to control it more than now. I've seen 2 general traffic controls in my life and I've never seen any driver who was obviously drunk. The system seems to work in the sense that most drunk people are more busy avoiding accidents and controls than driving like a madman because they feel so great. I simply don't know how to solve this problem without causing major contradiction.