Siri's Creator Challenges Texting-While-Driving Study 262
waderoush writes "A rash of media reports last week, reporting on a study released by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, implied that using voice-to-text apps like Siri or Vlingo while driving is no safer than manual texting. But Adam Cheyer, the co-inventor of Siri, says journalists took the wrong message from the study, which didn't test Siri or Vlingo in the recommended hands-free, eyes-free mode. In the study, researchers asked subjects to drive a closed course while they held an iPhone or Android phone in one hand, spoke messages into Siri or Vlingo, proofread the messages visually, and pressed buttons to send the messages. Under these conditions, driver response times were delayed by nearly a factor of two, the researchers found. 'Of course your driving performance is going to be degraded if you're reading screens and pushing buttons,' says Cheyer, who joined Apple in 2010 as part of the Siri acquisition and left the company two years later. To study whether voice-to-text apps are really safer than manual texting, he says, the Texas researchers should have tested Siri and Vlingo in car mode, where a Bluetooth headset or speakers are used to minimize visual and manual interaction. 'The study seems to have misunderstood how Siri was designed to be used,' Cheyer says. 'I don't think that there is any evidence that shows that if Siri and other systems are used properly in eyes-free mode, they are 'just as risky as texting.''"
"proofread the messages visually" (Score:2)
one more distraction while driving (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:one more distraction while driving (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and talking to someone in the car is distracting too. So is having kids kicking you in the back of the seat, changing radio stations. Billboards with flashy lights are distracting or they wouldn't have them. Oh I'm sure I'm missing a few more things.
My point is, is that there are a ton of distracting things going on around us as we barrel down the road. The question is, is one more safe than the other. It would be logical that if you can speak to the device instead of type it would be safer. Having your head down and hand off the wheel or if your driving a standard no hand on the wheel or some form of wtf. Having these studies are important for trying to understand how safe something is so we can judge if it's within an acceptable margin. I think texting manually falls into being unsafe and I don't want to share the road with people that are doing it.
It would appear speaking into Siri or other applications that do speech to text hasn't been studied enough to make a final decision, but I think it's going to end up OK. This study is a piece of garbage though and falls into bad research, as the software wasn't used as intended in the car.
Re:one more distraction while driving (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and talking to someone in the car is distracting too.
Actually, its not that distracting.
Other people in the car are aware of traffic conditions, they actually stop talking, they even point out dangerous situations (even fi from the back seat). Talking to a person in the passenger seat may actually be beneficial to driver safety.
Having a conversation on the phone, that requires concentration, can certainly be distracting, but even the simplest text message is far more distracting. All of the tests of this kind of stuff were done asking people to solve simple math problems or word games on the phone while driving over a challenging course in an unfamiliar vehicle.
Yaking on the bluetooth about nothing in particular while stuck in stop and go traffic simply isn't that dangerous as long as its hands free. The studies suggesting talking on the phone (hands free) is dangerous simply isn't born out by accident statistics. Texting while driving is born out by accident statistics.
Re:one more distraction while driving (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's a whole different sort of 'feedback' than wanted.
Re:one more distraction while driving (Score:4, Informative)
Additionally it has been shown that the phone is especially bad since it's a lot harder for your brain to process, especially over a cell phone due to the sound degradation due to all of the audio compression. I don't recall exactly where I heard this, likely on NPR Science Friday or one of the science magazines I subscribe to, but it makes sense. The brain has to do a lot more work to comprehend poor-quality speech than face-to-face speech, and the brain doesn't multitask all that well so it causes a much bigger distraction to driving.
Re: one more distraction while driving (Score:2)
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I wish I had such a phone that sounded ridiculously good. I have never heard cell phone that sounds anywhere close to a good land-line connection. Show me a cell phone where the wait music doesn't sound like a garbled mess. All the compression makes cell phone audio sound like crap that no amount of hardware can fix. My digital land line is always crystal clear and the sound quality is night and day compared to any cell phone, even going over a good bluetooth connection through either of my car's stereos.
Just pay attention already. (Score:4, Insightful)
It would appear speaking into Siri or other applications that do speech to text hasn't been studied enough to make a final decision, but I think it's going to end up OK. This study is a piece of garbage though and falls into bad research, as the software wasn't used as intended in the car.
The only valid study would evaluate the software being used as it is typically used, regardless of the manufacturers intent.
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It would appear speaking into Siri or other applications that do speech to text hasn't been studied enough to make a final decision, but I think it's going to end up OK. This study is a piece of garbage though and falls into bad research, as the software wasn't used as intended in the car.
The only valid study would evaluate the software being used as it is typically used, regardless of the manufacturers intent.
Well said.
Re:Just pay attention already. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that is complete bullshit. The only test whose results are of any interest at all would be a test which evaluates using the function PROPERLY, not in any onviouslly highly dangerous wrong manner. You could test the safety of some bird brain trying to drive his cars with his knees while woking on a rubik's cube, too, but that would be STUPID.
Texting while driving by typing manually and/or using a screen to verify results is obviously INHERENTLY highly dangerous. On the other hand, using voice exclusively to do the job is no different than talking to somebody inside the car or hands-free talking to a voice on a phone.
Now, the matter of getting some nut behind the wheel to use the proper and safe function in a proper and safe manner is another matter altogether. You could try to remove all driving distractions one by one, by taking out the builtin radio, outlawing the use of any radios or navigation devices or phones by the driver, putting soundproof walls between the driver and all occupants, trying to find some scientific method to suppress sexual thoughts when the driver sees someone attractive outside, or someone in the passenger seat is adjusting their bra, etc, etc - endlessly. I personally favor education instead. I know showing people how to live safely and relying on them to take safety seriously doesn't appeal to all mindsets.
I LIKE your subject line. I wish your message reflected it.
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It is not complete bullshit. If the software allows you to hand-correct the texts you dictate and vast majority of people do so while driving - that is then how the software is used. In software projects (at least in good ones) there is a testing period where the actual use is monitored, and people can be very creative in using the software in ways the designer did not mean to.
The only question is - what to do about it. In case of an business software used inefficiently the answer is often quite easy - mak
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Knees (Score:2)
You've never seen someone drive with their knees? I think it's very bad behavior, but it happens all... the... time.
No, seriously. I'd guess more than half of under-thirty-year-olds have used their knees to drive at one point or another, with no hands free to take the wheel.
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It's North Dakota. You could drive 30 random miles on any highway with no steering wheel and no brake pedal with no negative repercussions.
Northern tier highways are the reason people sometimes confuse "cruise control" with "autopilot".
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while woking on a rubik's cube
You have a stove in your car??? Also, don't cook plastic. Even cooked it isn't meant to be eaten usually.
Wok this way, talk this way...
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When using a study such as this, it's important to state the constraints of the study when explaining your conclusion. The headlines don't read "most commonly used mode of Siri/Vlingo not better than texting while driving." They read "Using Siri/Vlingo no better than texting while driving." If they didn't test the version of Siri designed to be used while driving, then this is an inappropriate conclusion; they didn't test Siri, they only tested a particular configuration (just like secure computing certific
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I think this was a politically driven study. They weren't after a better texting solution... they just wanted to ban phones in cars. At this rate (in CA) it will be illegal to possess a phone battery or charger in a moving vehicle. They just hate phones in cars. They're convinced that phones are killing millions of people every year, and don't you dare tell them that haven't a clue how statistics work. (Any batch of numbers, inappropriately crunched, will produce "statistics"... just not useful ones.
An
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It's only logical if the facts support it.
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Humans are inherently unsafe behind the wheel and I look forward to computers either aiding us or taking full control soon.
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Some countries require that all street side signage be submitted for approval and if too large or distracting they are banned. Your point is, if you have a 'FEW' distracting things going on what is the problem with adding even more, I think you have pointed out the flaw in your thinking, your are adding more distraction, which further degrades driving attention. As for those tests, they are specifically tests, not day to day distracted driving and lack all of your existing distractions to show the additio
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This study is a piece of garbage though and falls into bad research, as the software wasn't used as intended in the car.
Before one can say the study is garbage, one has to ask if people really do use Siri (or vlingo) as those applications were designed to be used while driving. Personally, I can not say either way, I couldn't even use Siri (or vlingo, google voice search) while driving even if I wanted to. No application is capable of understanding my accent under any circumstance, let alone while driving.
Whatever happens, please do not force Siri to be used only when the car is stopped. I have a friend who's Prius built-in
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I guess I may be a little biased because while I haven't used siri I have used my Motorola roadster to write up text responses, and answer the phone while driving. I can also make a call with one press of a button but usually don't(even though it's legal where I am to do so). I find it thousands of times more safe to do than text by hand, which I will have to admit I did years ago when I first got my blackberry(I'm quite ashamed to admit now).
Also your friend frightens me.
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It would appear speaking into Siri or other applications that do speech to text hasn't been studied enough to make a final decision, but I think it's going to end up OK. This study is a piece of garbage though and falls into bad research, as the software wasn't used as intended in the car.
So, you know for a fact that users are actually using them as intended in the car? My wife uses Siri in the car all the time. It's legal "hands-free". But she doesn't ever use a headset. So she's not using it in the "intended" manner. If most follow her lead, then the study is valid. As you are so certain it's invalid, then you must have some information about what percentage of people use them "as intended", otherwise the only piece of garbage here isn't the study, but your post.
Re:one more distraction while driving (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the study was garbage, but I don't think it was all that helpful. They should've tested the recommended configuration and mode; if that turned out to be safer, then you could use the study to encourage people to change their behaviour. This study a) draws blanket conclusions it wasn't designed to test, and b) doesn't answer the most relevant question, i.e., "Is texting still bad if you don't have to look away from the road?"
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So all progress should cease because no one will use technology properly and any outlier who will use it properly should be penalized by not allowing its use. You don't believe it is possible to educate people to use technology properly and conduct their activities without putting innocent lives at risk. What a ray of sunshine you are.
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I think the complaint is based on the perception that visual distraction is way worse than any other form of distraction while driving. The problem of course, is that we know that visual processing is not the only inhibitor.
Think of all the times you almost caused an accident when emotionally distressed for example. I can name a dozen easily, where I was so (insert emotional state like angry, excited, sad) where I simply lost focus on the road. Talking while driving may invoke a similar emotional respons
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Yep. Talking with other people in the car should be illegal. Music should be illegal, remove radios from cars. In fact, GPS are also distracting, take em away!
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The sound quality coming from other people in the car is great. The sound quality from your phone is compartively terrible. Your brain has to do a lot of extra work to parse language coming from a low-quality source, which impairs your ability to drive. I would be interested in a comparison between talking on the phone and listening to AM talk radio.
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I recall hearing this at one point. I don't recall if it was in one of my science magazines or on NPR's Science Friday but it makes a lot of sense, especially now that we know that the brain is not all that great at multitasking like we once thought.
I also would love to see more studies on this.
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The sound quality coming from other people in the car is great. The sound quality from your phone is compartively terrible. Your brain has to do a lot of extra work to parse language coming from a low-quality source, which impairs your ability to drive. I would be interested in a comparison between talking on the phone and listening to AM talk radio.
I recall hearing this at one point. I don't recall if it was in one of my science magazines or on NPR's Science Friday but it makes a lot of sense
Yeah, NPR would say that about AM radio.
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Oh please, issues like that pale in significance compared to the important business of selling the latest consumer crap electronics.
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...and in belated review my form was badder than it should. Point still stands.
"In the first four years of the project, CALO-funded research has resulted in more than five hundred publications across all fields of artificial intelligence. "
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO [wikipedia.org]
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I did it on the CALO project when Siri first hit the news. - He appears to be the lead for SRI's contribution to the CALO project. I don't know the extent of that contribution.
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Distraction. (Score:3, Insightful)
When you're driving you should be concentrating on driving, that's it, anything else can lead to an accident because your mind is not on the task at hand.
So, no, you shouldn't be pissing about sending texts, if you don't like it, get a bus/train where you can text to your hearts delight.
If you're so f**kin important that you need to text, then get a chauffeur.
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if you don't like it, get a bus/train where you can text to your hearts delight.
Among numerous other reasons, this is why we need a far more reliable public transportation system (The nearest bus stop where I live is almost 3 miles away and it only gets service once a day). If buses and trains were commonplace, law enforcement could penalize reckless/distracted driving far more harshly and the number of drivers texting while driving would quickly approach zero.
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The nearest bus stop where I live is almost 3 miles away and it only gets service once a day
So you want the bus to run empty for three dozen trips a day just in case you decide to take it?
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I tried this once with a local bus system. Two hours to anywhere in town... two hours back. Ok if you're a hobo, but kind of rough on working folk.
I wish it wasn't so... I hate driving.
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I'd gladly buy a bus or train.... It's just that they are so much more expensive.
Wouldn't crashing a bus or train though while texting be so much more catastrophic than when driving a car?
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Re: Distraction. (Score:2)
Re:Distraction. (Score:4, Insightful)
People un-used to city traffic probably DO have to concentrate 100% on driving.
However this is not the norm for most people. You can drive down the freeway in light to moderate traffic and not have much of your conscious brain involved at all. You can arrive at your destination and not recall a single thing about the trip.
In anything but rush hour traffic or high density traffic on a crowded freeway, driving simply isn't that difficult. If it was, we wouldn't hand out driving licenses to anyone with a pulse. Because an awfully large percentage of people just don't have 100% to devote to the task.
There are times when everyone has to pay attention. But the vast majority of my driving, and probably most people's driving, can be managed almost automatically, leaving plenty of time to listen to the radio, or the person on the next seat, or the person on the bluetooth.
Anyone who claims you have to devote 100% of your faculties to driving probably doesn't drive much.
Re:Distraction. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll agree that most of a trip you feel like you're on autopilot the problem arises when something unexpected happens. If you have your eyes off the road when that unexpected happens you're a lot worse off than had you been paying attention. So yeah if you get to your destination safely then you can look back and say man that didn't take any conscious effort at all but that's not why you need to pay attention. You need to be on your toes for when something novel or out of the ordinary happens.
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Yes, exactly. This is why touchscreen controls in automobiles are a terrible idea, and more to the point, why using anything that cannot be operated almost entirely by feel is a terrible idea. Texting, of course, is one of the most extreme examples of that problem, because the amount of time you have to spend looking at the screen in order to actually read a block of text for correctness is significantly greater than the time it takes to choose an option from a familiar menu or find the volume control "bu
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Not at all. A properly designed HUD doesn't require your eyes to change focus. From the driver's perspective, you would be looking out at infinity and would still be able to read the text superimposed over what you're seeing out the window.
Yes, but that is equally true whether you're parsing a text message or are formula
Re:Distraction. (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, yes you are. Infinity, as far as the human eye is concerned, is anything beyond about 20 feet, so except when you're looking in your mirrors (which you really don't need to do constantly, just occasionally), your eyes are almost always going to be at infinity while driving. Anything short of that means you're following too close behind the car in front of you.
First, that's the opposite of ludditism, which means rejection of technology, not rejection of scientific knowledge. Second, you can have my car radio when you pry it with a crowbar from my cold, dead dashboard. You can't eliminate all distractions, and it is stupid to try.
The goal of any driving-related safety improvements should be to minimize the distraction without being so invasive that people work around whatever solution you put in place. Passing laws against texting causes people to hide their phones while they text, resulting in them looking down even farther from the road, and thus driving even more dangerously. Driving modes that prevent visually reviewing your text messages don't help either, because most people don't want to send out text messages that make them look functionally illiterate, as is often the case with voice dictation under even the best conditions (which a noisy automobile ain't). Using HUDs, by contrast, can dramatically decrease the risk of sending a single text message, mitigating it so much that for the sane 99.9% of drivers who would use such things fairly infrequently, the additional risk of texting in that manner is likely to be lost in the statistical noise.
But of course, the best choice of all is to get the meatbag out from behind the wheel in the first place. That not only eliminates all risk from distractions, but also eliminates all risk from fatigue, illness, sudden cardiac arrest, seizures, sweat getting in your eyes, and probably hundreds of other risk factors.
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People can get away pretty well navigating a road in light traffic, staying in the lane, and avoiding hitting other cars, which are large and easy to track and avoid without much attention. Which is all well and good until they hit pedestrians and cyclists.
Pros AND Cons (Score:2, Insightful)
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Wait, can't siri read the text back to you before sending it?
Re:Pros AND Cons (Score:5, Informative)
Siri reads back the text by default if you're in the eyes-free mode. But her text-to-speech isn't always easy to understand, so it's hard to tell sometimes if she got it right.
Once speech-to-text-to-speech becomes more common (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how Siri was designed (Score:2)
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The research is still valid in the sense that most people probably have no idea about "car mode" and "no-eyes" mode.
Hmmm, seems a little shallow to claim the research is valid when it blames the device for ignorance of the operator.
The real problem is something like 60 or 70% of the people have given up on SIRI all together because it just doesn't work all that well.
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The research is still valid in the sense that most people probably have no idea about "car mode" and "no-eyes" mode.
Hmmm, seems a little shallow to claim the research is valid when it blames the device for ignorance of the operator.
The real problem is something like 60 or 70% of the people have given up on SIRI all together because it just doesn't work all that well.
Except it doesn't blame the device for the ignorance of the operator. The ignorance of the operator is already a given -- they're texting while driving, or trying to do the equivalent thinking that the way they (mis)use Siri makes it safer to text. That they additionally are ignorant of the different modes only further supports the idea that texting while driving (regardless of how it is done) is generally less safer than not texting. At worst, they would simply need to modify it to say that "the way most p
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Yes; GP's attitude seems to be a massively popular one, as well as an absurd and irrational one. But we already knew people were stupid, and always want to force other people who aren't stupid to live with the results of that stupidity.
"Designed to be used" vs. "actually used" (Score:5, Insightful)
If the study tested Siri the way Siri is normally used, then how Siri was designed to be used is irrelevant.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdhwTXwhA4c [youtube.com]
Professor: It works! It works!
*car drives into hangar, stops, and passengers get out*
President: Professor?
Professor: You should not be here! This is private property!
*Professor turns around*
Professor: Mr. President! I'm so sorry.
President: Ah, good evening professor. This is Major Agnew. Major Agnew, Professor.
Professor: Mr. President, this is indeed an honor. I had no idea.
President: Well, our country has been pouring a lot of money into this secret research of you
Driving Performance (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course your driving performance is going to be degraded if you're reading screens and pushing buttons,'
See, shit like this is why the Prophet Hicks was so adamant in his belief that advertising people should do the world a favor and kill themselves.
FYI, asshole, it's an issue because humans cannot multitask, and every second you pay attention to that goddamn toy is one more second you're not paying attention to the road.
Perhaps Mr. My-Sales-Figures-Are-More-Important-Than-Your-Safety should read the stacks upon stacks of other studies that prove any distraction from driving is dangerous. Even talking to the guy in the passenger seat. [teendriversource.org]
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Re:Driving Performance (Score:4, Informative)
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People's perceptions of how good they are at mental activities generally rely on complete ignorance about how the brain actually works. And they nearly always overestimate their own abilities.
For example, the fact that small changes in physical sensation can alter how you react to a stranger.
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/heart-warming-news-on-coffee/?ei=5070&emc=eta1 [nytimes.com]
And then there's the MRI scans showing that decisions are largely made before we're aware of them:
http://www.wired.com/sci [wired.com]
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Do you need more facts why women are better drivers than men
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Wholly untrue. Or do you think most humans are incapable of even walking and chewing at the same time?
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I explicitly chose examples of walking and chewing because neither of those tasks are autonomous, as breathing and your heartbeat are, which you mentioned... I did not.
They are, however, significant in that these are not mentally demanding activities, and neither really distracts you from doing other things at the same time.
Point being that human beings *CAN* multitask, particularly when at least one of the things that they are multitasking does not actually require a significant amount of attention to
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...humans cannot multitask
They can, up to the point they bite on the gristle in the quarter pounder (royale with cheese) and decide the fries taste like they were fried in pus freshly squeezed from a pimple. At that point there is no alternative to texting your friends about your sorry fate and dying in a fiery explosion.
Co-inventor? WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Siri is a spin-out from the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center, and is an offshoot of the DARPA-funded CALO project
Your government paid for Siri .... why is Apple able to monoplise it ?
Real world use? (Score:2)
Sure, ideally you'd never look at the screen. But are we sure most people wouldn't proofread messages and manually press send once happy? Maybe the study looked at what most people would consider voice-to-text, and how this form of VTT would affect driving.
The bloody ignorance (Score:2)
If you handle a gun, your priority is safety. Your safety and that of others. That is your first priority and the own priority.
Traffic is dangerous too, so it's the same there.
If your bloody text messages are so important that it can't wait 10 minutes, you better be so bloody important that you can afford a driver.
Of not, your focus on the traffic.
too bad studies have proven otherwise (Score:5, Insightful)
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Under nominal and expected driving conditions, where speed is relatively constant, and one is not performing any kind of maneuver which may involve negotiating with unpredictable traffic flow, the task of driving, at least by an experienced driver, does not require any significant amount of concentration, and so engaging in conversation would not be so distracting as to endanger anyone.
If you can walk in a straight line and chew food at the same time, and if you are already otherwise a competent driver,
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Under nominal and expected driving conditions...
And that's where everything goes wrong. You know, under "normal and expected conditions" there isn't any dogshit on the sidewalk, but guess what?
I'm aware that not every situation is deal... but a driver who's actually otherwise competent should be able to recognize those situations the instant that they arise..
Unless of course they're busy with whatever else they do under "normal and expected conditions." Switching attention takes time---there's a reason why sprinters are not chatting on the phone right up until they hear the starting gun.
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Disengaging from a conversation to do something else that you were not otherwise planning to do should take no more time than doing what you were going to do anyways... you just stop
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No... but then that's because I'm physically extremely clumsy.
I was regularly walking right head on into walls until I was about 7.
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It is not that the other people in the car are paying attention, it is that the sound quality is so much worse from your phone that your brain has to devote much more attention to parsing language.
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Is there a study that backs this assertion up?
Screw you (Score:2)
Do people actually look at the screen? Yes.
Is it stable enough and good enough that people actually trust it to not screw up the text? No.
I may be a biased commentator, but I am currently on the hunt for a replacement vehicle specifically because of a texting driver. Luckily, I am still vertical and breathing.
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While I was one of the first to criticize the "You're holding it wrong" response from Apple, in this situation, he does hold some validity. Sure, if you are using the hands-on mode, it is just as dangerous, but if there are driving oriented controls, it should at least be mentioned in the study that they exist but were explicitly disregarded. Who knows if those in the study would have used that mode if they weren't explicitly told how to use the device in the study. I have no idea how Siri works or what its
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Test how it is used, debug code, not comments (Score:2)
Whistling and Pissing At The Same Time (Score:2)
So the elephant in the room... (Score:2)
...is that voice-to-text software is so remarkably unreliable that nobody uses it without proofreading the output before sending. I think most people could have told you this without an official study.
And just for the obtuse, it isn't that it completely misunderstands everything you say, it's that when you're sending texts, the things it tends to fail to translate properly tend to be things that get your text posted to one of those autocorrect-joke sites. Or get you in trouble with the wife/husband/parents/
He's a jerk. (Score:2)
I ride my bike. The more car drivers' heads are up, the safer I am. The heck with jerks trying to tout their products at the expense of public safety.
I wasn't even aware there was an eyes free mode (Score:2)
I have an iPhone 4S but I long ago concluded that Siri is useless. It doesn't understand conversational speech and requires pressing and holding the button every time you want it to do anything. Its speech recognition only gets about 50-60% of words correct. I tried dictating a text in the car about twice before deciding it was entirely reckless and dangerous.
Every example I've ever heard of using Siri has been stupid pointless stuff I would never do anyway. It would be nice if it had an AI capable of takin
Texting while driving is bad... period (Score:4, Insightful)
Admittedly, I'm an "old guy" so maybe I'm way out of touch with the times, but I'm fairly tech-savvy, well-educated, so FWIW...
I've had 4 very unsettling experiences of near head-on collisions. Each time I saw the other driver look up and get a very astonished look on their face after which they (thankfully) swerved back into their lane.
Meanwhile I was slowing down while maneuvering for safety on the shoulder or sidewalk.
I can only hope that the person who claims texting while driving is NOT a distraction has the same experience, at some point.
As far as talking on a phone is concerned, I have my doubts about that, too.
Again, this is from my personal experience, so YMMV.
I deal with a wide variety of subjects. Some of them are design-oriented. While discussing a subject re the design of something, I find myself visualizing that which I'm attempting to describe. Those are the times I've found myself vulnerable to inattentive driving. For example, I've had some close calls rear-ending other vehicles or missed my turn-off. I DO make a point of getting over to the slow lane and dropping my speed, but I've been surprised by a semi or two that had changed into my lane further up the road in front of me. I missed it because I was... distracted. So I've been guilty, too. (Apparently, something is not happening between my visual cortex and other cognitive functions. Although, my friends from the 60's would probably say... well, never mind. That's for another post.)
Now I hand my phone to my wife and ask her to take the call or exit or pull way off on the shoulder (which isn't all that safe either now-a-days). And when I get a call from someone whose name/cell number I recognize, I ask if they're driving first. I don't want to be the person on the other end of a phone call that contributed to an accident. Besides, I still think most of our phone calls can wait.
Come to think of it, I've even had people walk into me or nearly walk into me in stores while talking/texting on their phones.
Anyhow, please be careful, folks.
Oh yeah... and get off my lawn, kid.
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1, it is task oriented. You are not gabbing about grocery lists, or where Ralph in accounting left the Finster file.
2. It is a half-duplex conversation. Your brain is not engaged in listening for the other person to say something, until you release the mic button.
Re:They're doing it wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
" letting Texas A&M Transportation Institute do a study"
What do you mean "letting"?
Are you implying that our government should be in the business of banning universities from conducting experiments and studies?
What does the FCC post have to do with a transportation study?
That post is usually hand picked to be someone that will represent the elected president's agenda. For example, Bush picked Colin Powel's son as his FCC chairman, because of course they wanted hands off regulation, which is a bit ironic because that's what FCC does. Pretty much the Ron Swanson of FCC.
Stop trying so hard. If you squint your eyes hard enough you will see a conspiracy in anything.
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given most people don't pay have conversations requiring that level of concentration whlie driving
Why are you assuming that? Is it because you like texting while driving and you want it to be legal because you think you are doing it safely? You sound like the alcoholics in the 1980s. "I haven't crashed, so I must be safe".
Anything distracting reduces safety.
Nanny Politics (Score:2, Insightful)
Removing the (well deserved) Obama bashing out of your post, and you beat me to the punch. There's a real drive in certain political circles right now to protect us from something that they perceive is dangerous (cell phones anywhere near a car). Any study that will "prove" their point is worth funding.
The fact of the matter is, talking on a cell p
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You're new 'round here, aintcha?