Texting While Driving Can Be Deadly, Study
Shows
A
new study confirms what most people already
know: sending text messages and driving are
a potentially lethal combination. A timely
study in the journal Human Factors reveals
that texting (sending or reading a text
message on a cellular phone) is much riskier
that talking on a cell phone or with another
passenger.
Human factors/ergonomics researchers at the
University of Utah found that texters in a
driving simulator had more crashes,
responded more slowly to brake lights on
cars in front of them, and showed impairment
in forward and lateral control than did
drivers who talked on a cell phone while
driving or drove without texting.
Researchers Frank Drews and colleagues found
evidence that attention patterns differ for
drivers who text versus those who converse
on a cell phone.
In the latter case, the researchers say,
"drivers apparently attempt to divide
attention between a phone conversation and
driving, adjusting the processing priority
of the two activities depending on task
demands." But texting requires drivers to
switch their attention from one task to the
other.
When such attention-switching occurs as
drivers compose, read, or receive a text,
their overall reaction times are
substantially slower than when they're
engaged in a phone conversation. The type of
texting activity also appears to make a
difference; in this study, reading messages
affected braking times more than did
composing them.
The hazards of texting while driving
continue to receive broad national and
international attention as accident rates
attributed to this practice increase. As a
result, a growing number of U.S. cities and
states, as well as Canadian provinces, ban
texting while operating a vehicle.
Drews et al. noted that according to CTIA (www.ctia.org),
more than 1 trillion text messages were sent
in 2008 in the United States alone.
To find why and how much drivers are
impaired during texting, the researchers
engaged 20 men and 20 women between the ages
of 19 and 23 in both a single task (straight
driving) and a dual task (driving and
texting) in a high-fidelity simulator. The
participants, experienced texters with an
average of 4.75 years of driving experience,
received and sent messages while the
researchers observed their brake onset time,
following distance, lane maintenance, and
collisions.
The crash risk attributable to texting is
substantial. One possible explanation is
that drivers who text tend to decrease their
minimum following distance and also
experience delayed reaction time. For
example, in the Drews et al. study, drivers'
median reaction time increased by 30% when
they were texting and 9% when they talked on
the phone, compared with their performance
in a driving-only condition.
Notwithstanding the safety risk of texting
while driving, previous research by Drews
and colleagues at the University of Utah --
not to mention crash data and widespread
legislation -- makes clear that using a
phone while driving is dangerous. |
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