The federal government used the conclusion of its two day summit on distracted driving to announce a complete ban on text-messaging by truckers, bus drivers and railroad engineers, all of whom are subject to federal regulation. It will also compel states to impose similar restrictions on drivers of passenger cars at the risk of losing federal transportation funding for local road projects.
Earlier in the week, the president signed an executive order prohibiting federal employees from texting while driving government vehicles or when driving private vehicles on government business. Rules for enforcing the ban are due in about 90 days. [1]
In an earlier post, I suggested that analog and digital distractions should be treated the same way under law. To those ends, I wondered allowed about how the summit would define distractions. Much of the summit focused on digital gadgets -- cell phones chief among them.
But as Tom Mutchler from Consumer Reports chronicled in his extensive postings from the summit, distractions were broadly defined and compared. Distractions are not just a device or a thing. Instead, risk changes with the behavior required by the distraction -- and the role of the person being distracted. Mutchler's summary follows:
Earlier in the week, the president signed an executive order prohibiting federal employees from texting while driving government vehicles or when driving private vehicles on government business. Rules for enforcing the ban are due in about 90 days. [1]
In an earlier post, I suggested that analog and digital distractions should be treated the same way under law. To those ends, I wondered allowed about how the summit would define distractions. Much of the summit focused on digital gadgets -- cell phones chief among them.
But as Tom Mutchler from Consumer Reports chronicled in his extensive postings from the summit, distractions were broadly defined and compared. Distractions are not just a device or a thing. Instead, risk changes with the behavior required by the distraction -- and the role of the person being distracted. Mutchler's summary follows:
Dr. John Lee, a human factors expert from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, aptly made the point when he noted that when a driver changes roles--they become a mother/father, boyfriend/girlfriend, diner, or worker instead of a driver--their risk increases.Marketers were busy during the summit. My single post on the subject attracted dozens of comments from folks with something to sell. Many of them argued that text to speech technologies can reduce the risk of digital distractions because it keeps your hands on the wheel, if not always your mind on the road. My favorite pitch, though, was for a reinforced super bumper. The manufacturer argues, essentially, that getting hit by a distracted driver is inevitable -- so we might as well armor up our vehicles.
Indeed, there are plenty of old-school distractions--eating, drinking, grooming, talking to a passenger, dealing with children -- as well as cell phone use and texting. Making those illegal is even harder than proposing legislation on the design and use of electronic devices. But several presentations today made it clear that there is a difference in the risk profile of "old-school" and "new-school" distraction.
First off, scientifically, there are different kinds of distractions.
- Visual distractions take your eyes off the road.
- Manual distractions take your hands off the wheel.
- Cognitive distractions take your mind off the road.
Simple in-vehicle tasks like tuning a radio (assuming you're not navigating a complex in-car multidirectional controller) have little cognitive load, a slight visual load (a quick glance), and a brief manual load. Adjusting the radio is often accepted as a baseline for comparing the amount of distraction of other controls. Various other "old-school" distractions each register differently with respect to these demands.
But texting is a "perfect storm." It requires you to look at the keyboard, manually manipulate the keys, and think about what you're writing. This means texting is a visual, manual, and cognitive distraction all in one.
Beyond the science, there is naturalistic study data that show the relative risks of these behaviors. Data from Virginia Tech shows that texting increases your odds 23.2 times of having a crash. That's off the charts compared to drinking (even odds), eating (1.6 times), or applying make-up (3.1 times.) Some distractions, like talking to a passenger or adjusting the radio, actually improved safety and had a protective effect, possibly by combating fatigue or having the passenger serving as a collision warning device.
One particular "old-school" distraction was more dangerous than the others. Reaching for a moving object increased the odds of a crash by 8.8 times. It might make a mess, but it's safer to let your bag fly off the front seat and hit the floor than to grab for it. (It's even safer to leave it in the trunk.)
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