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 When a phone was the distraction, the reaction times of teen drivers
were markedly slower, and about half the time they did not brake or
steer to avoid the crash, researchers report in the Journal of
Safety Research.
“There have been several recent naturalistic studies of driving that
have reported distraction to be present much more often than was
originally seen in police- reported crash data,” said lead author
Cher Carney of the Transportation and Vehicle Safety Policy Research
Program at the Public Policy Center at The University of Iowa.
“Research has shown that teen drivers are more willing to engage in
distractions than are adult drivers,” Carney told Reuters Health by
email. “They are also overconfident in their abilities as a driver
and tend to take more risks, such as choosing to be distracted at
inopportune times.”
The researchers used data from more than 400 rear-end collisions
involving a driver aged 16 to 19, and captured by in-vehicle event
recorders between 2007 and 2013. The devices were triggered to
record video, audio and accelerometer data by hard braking, fast
cornering or an impact force, and the study team focused only on the
six seconds prior to a crash.
In almost 90 percent of crashes, the driver was not paying
sufficient attention to the road ahead, according to the
researchers. Using a cell phone, looking outside the vehicle,
looking at another vehicle, personal grooming and reaching for an
object in the car resulted in the most time spent looking away from
the road.
For drivers using a cell phone, those who were texting had longer
response times than those who were making a voice call.
“Teens aren’t just talking on their phones anymore, they are texting,
snapchatting and posting on Instagram, all while driving,” Carney
said.
There is no one solution to distracted driving, but “social norms
regarding the acceptance of cell phone use while driving have to
change, like they have for alcohol,” she said. “A generation ago, it
was socially okay to drink and drive – now it is not.”
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“And new automotive technologies, such as automated braking and lane
keeping, should help reduce the crash risk associated with
distraction when it happens,” Carney said. “Additionally, parents
need to be setting an example for their kids by not using the cell
phone while driving and enforcing the rules for their teenage
drivers.”
Distracted driving is not a new problem, and adults may be
distracted just as often as teens, said Rob Foss of the Highway
Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, who was not part of the new study.
“It doesn’t really look like teenagers are any more or less likely
to use their phones than adults,” Foss told Reuters Health.
Distracted driving is more like speeding than driving drunk, he
said, because it can happen for only moments at a time.
“There’s almost nothing we can do to control distracted driving,
similar to speeding,” he said. “Each microsecond you’re making a
non-conscious decision, it’s something that everybody does.
Everybody is distracted at various points in driving.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1rwYpnm Journal of Safety Research, online
April 7, 2016.
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