Safe
School Travels - They make headlines, but it turns out that
school buses are not the most dangerous way for kids to get to
school. (9/19/02)
Read
My Eyes - Scientists using new technology to study infants’
eye movements say they can reveal what babies know and how they
learn. (2/6/01)
Elsewhere on the web
Cell
Phones and Highway Safety: 2002 State Legislative Update
Drive
Now, Chat Later - Legislation advocacy and a tribute to Kim
and Kathy Seager
Car
Phone Ban Author Wants More - Wired
Drive
Safer, Talk Later - AAA
"The
Disconnect Between Law and Policy Analysis: A Case Study of Drivers
and Cell Phones" - Brookings Institute
Talking on a cell phone while driving can lead to fatal accidents. Lawmakers
in many states are considering making it illegal to use a cell phone while
driving unless you have a hands-free phone.
But as this ScienCentral News video reports, hands-free phones may not be safer
after all.
Hands-Free Isn’t Risk-Free
Surely if you’re not holding a phone in your hand while driving, you’re
more able to react to a potential driving emergency. But studies are revealing
that there’s really no difference between using hands-free phones and
hand-held phones while driving.
David
Strayer, a psychologist from the University
of Utah, says, “We’ve done a couple of studies that have directly
compared hand-held to hands-free cell phones. We didn’t find any difference.
When people are talking on the cell phone, their reactions are slowed by about
20 percent.” It turns out that the problem isn’t in the driver’s
hands; it’s in his head.
Strayer used a $100,000
driving simulator and an eye-tracking device to measure how many billboards,
road signs, and objects drivers looked at as they drove. Half the drivers
also talked to someone using a hands-free cell phone. Later, he showed the
drivers pictures of billboards and signs, and asked them if they remembered
seeing them. The drivers who talked on phones remembered half as many of the
objects they looked at compared to those who were driving without talking
on phones. So even though the eye-tracker showed that they looked right at
certain signs, the cell phone drivers did not remember seeing them.
Strayer calls this phenomenon “inattention blindness,” and explains
that “even though the driver who is using the cell phone is looking
out the windshield, they’re not necessarily seeing what’s out
there because their mind is directed elsewhere.” So these conversations,
whether hand-held or hands-free, impair a driver’s performance by withdrawing
attention from the scene, which can cause anything from slower reaction
time to traffic signals, to dangerous
accidents.
Inattention blindness from cell phones is the beginning of what Strayer calls
a “new class of distractions” for our modern multitasking culture.
“You now have navigation systems, electronic mail, you can send and
receive faxes, you can surf the Internet while you’re driving. There’s
all of a sudden a new class of technology that’s making its way into
the vehicle that has a much greater potential for distraction.”
Virtual Reality
Strayer’s study also indicated that the drivers did not even realize
that they weren’t really “seeing” everything in front of
them on the road. They thought they were driving perfectly safely, and figured
that if anyone had a problem driving while using a cell phone, it would be
“the other guy.” He explains, “Part of this inattention
blindness shuts down their own processing and their own assessment of how
well they’re driving. So they themselves are not as aware of their driving
performance while they’re using a cell phone.”
So what comes over these cell phone users as they drive? Strayer thinks they
enter a kind of “virtual reality” with the person they’re
chatting with. “Neither you nor the other person is really dealing with
the physical environment that you’re in. Instead you’re in this
kind of cell phone-induced virtual reality, and you interact in that virtual
environment rather than talk about the physical here and now of driving.”
This certainly doesn’t describe any “other guy” you’d
want to be sharing the road with. The data seems to suggest that restricting
hand-held phones and allowing hands-free phones is not likely to eliminate
cell phone-related accidents.
The study was published in the March 2003 issue of the Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Applied. A portion of the study also is
featured in the February-March issue of Injury
Insights, published by the National Safety Council. The University
of Utah funded the work.