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 Researchers used a driving simulator and video phones to examine how
a driver’s conversation partner – either on the phone or in the car
– could affect their safety on the road.
At any given time, about 5 percent of drivers in the U.S. are using
their cell phones, but the devices are cited as a cause of
distraction in 18 percent of crashes, say the authors.
“For a number of years, we’ve been thinking about ‘how might we make
a cell phone partner - that is someone who is speaking to a driver
who might be using legally a hands free cell phone . . . more like a
passenger’,” Arthur Kramer told Reuters Health in an email.
Kramer, who led the study, is director of the Beckman Institute at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“Because we know in the great majority of studies, the passengers,
at least adult passengers who are drivers themselves, tend to be
useful to drivers - it’s another pair of eyes, and experienced eyes,
if it’s another driver,” he said.
Kramer said he and his colleagues thought it might be interesting to
give the conversation partner at home or in a different location
similar information to what a passenger sitting in the car would
have, using a video-capable smartphone.
“And that’s what we did – we provided essentially a split screen
video of the driver’s face and outside the windscreen,” Kramer said.
Kramer and his team designed the study to see if the video
information could make the conversation partner more like a
passenger.
They enrolled 48 college students who had two or more years of
driving experience and set up four driving scenarios: the driver
alone in the simulator, the driver speaking to a passenger who was
also in the simulator, the driver speaking on a hands-free cell
phone to someone in a different location and the driver speaking on
a hands-free cell phone to someone who could see the driver and the
driving scene out the front windshield with a video phone.
Having a regular cell-phone conversation tripled the risk of
collision compared to driving alone, and doubled the risk when
compared with driving with a passenger or talking on the phone to a
person who could see the driver and the road ahead.
Interestingly, the study team notes in Psychological Science,
drivers were least likely to remember which road signs they had seen
when they drove alone as compared to having a passenger or being on
either type of cell-phone call.
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The researchers also analyzed conversations between the drivers and
either the passenger or the callers.
“We found when the individuals at home or somewhere else had the
split screen video they behaved, in terms of how they used language,
more like the passenger,” Kramer said. “That is, they were able to
stop speaking when they perceived the driver was being busy."
He added that cell phone partners with video would also reference
driving events such as bicyclists or cars in close proximity, much
like a passenger normally would.
Kramer is cautiously optimistic, but still thinks talking on a cell
phone while driving – even hands free - is “a stupid thing to do.”
He also isn’t sure the video technology would be helpful for teens
who might just find it more of a distraction.
“I don’t want to encourage more people to use the cell phone when
they’re driving but since it is indeed legal in every state in the
United States, this could be one way to reduce accidents,” he said.
The study was only a simulation, so it’s not clear how the
technology would impact drivers in the real world.
Arthur Goodwin, a researcher with the Highway Safety Research Center
at the University of North Carolina, thinks it’s an intriguing study
that also provides information on how passengers might be helpful
for drivers.
Studies show that adult drivers "are less likely to be involved in a
crash if they have a passenger with them, but we don’t necessarily
know why that’s the case,” Goodwin, who wasn’t involved in the new
study, told Reuters Health.
“These findings suggest that passengers do pay attention to what
drivers are doing and will adjust their own behavior accordingly,
either by mentioning things that might be happening on the roadway
or perhaps talking a little bit less than they normally would
compared to somebody else who’s on a cell phone,” Goodwin said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1vnE95L Psychological Science, online October
8, 2104.
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