Hands-free Mobile Whilst Driving

[Horse]

If you were to start a discussion on speed, it would be a very short discussion as you would no doubt find me in agreement.

However, you started what I thought was going to be a discussion, and got upset when I didn't understand that; but now you seem determined to keep it otherwise. Why don't you want to answer those points I made?

[Horse]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychology-Driv ... 0805844252

2006? You need some modern stuff!

This is 2007

http://www.trl.co.uk/online_store/repor ... phones.htm [free download]

Conversations in cars: the relative hazards of mobile phones

The aim of this study was to benchmark the distraction caused by hands-free mobile phone conversations in relation to other conventional in-car tasks, and to similar conversations held with a front seat passenger. Thirty experienced drivers aged between 21 and 64 years drove a 17 km route in the TRL driving simulator for each experimental condition.

The results showed a complex but consistent picture of distraction. Measures of car following ability and general measures of speed control showed that all additional conversation and in-vehicle tasks produced more variable performance consistent with the additional load imposed.

Self report subjective workload measures showed that both in-vehicle and passenger conversation tasks were rated equally more difficult than baseline driving. Handsfree conversations were rated yet more difficult.

This pattern was repeated in results of choice reaction time tasks. When drivers were required to respond selectively to road signs, it was shown that the best performance was achieved in the driving baseline condition, with a significant deterioration to in-vehicle and passenger conversation conditions, and yet further deterioration in the handsfree conversation drive.

The act of driving was shown to have a distinct effect on the quality and character of a conversation. The rate of talking, the number of pauses, number of errors and performance on verbal and numerical reasoning tasks all deteriorated when driving at the same time.

Comparison was made between the conversations held over the carphone and with the front seat passenger. There was a clear difference on all conversation measures showing that performance was worse when the response was via the handsfree carphone. It is concluded that hands-free phone conversations impair driving performance more than these other common in-vehicle distractions.

Author A M Parkes, T Luke, P C Burns and T Lansdown Pages 32
Date 02/04/2007 Reference TRL664
ISBN 978-1-84608-662-5 ISSN 0968-4107

[jameslb101]

...Still, talking on a mobile in general (even when not driving) does require much more concentration than talking to a 'real person'.

That depends entirely on the nature of the conversation. I have found some conversations in the car require much more concentration than some phone calls. The nature of the conversation is far more important than the proximity of the interlocutors. Just as the circumstances of a particular speed is more important than the speed itself.

I am surprised you view speeding as simply a legal issue but mobile phone use as always a safety issue.

I view inappropriate speed as a safety issue in the same way I view inappropriate distractions as a safety issue.

I believe concentration is the foundation to good driving, and unless in a life threatening situation, don't see why it should voluntarily compromised. Passengers shut up / can be ignored in demanding situations - that's more difficult when you're having a conference call with your boss.

[MGF]

I agree that concentrating on the driving task is paramount and mobile phone use has the potential to affect that adversely. I cannot imagine holding a conference call safely whilst driving unless you stuck in a horrendous traffic jam. Not all calls are conference calls. Many are brief, the purpose of which is to impart or receive straightforward information that often puts the driver's mind at rest which will aid his concentration. As for passengers shutting up or ignoring them I take it you are not married?

I do not like using the phone whilst driving because it is a distraction but I will make and receive the odd short call if I think it is necessary. I usually pull over to do so or take advantage of the long red phase of traffic lights. I don't usually use handsfree.

[Ancient]

...

The act of driving was shown to have a distinct effect on the quality and character of a conversation. The rate of talking, the number of pauses, number of errors and performance on verbal and numerical reasoning tasks all deteriorated when driving at the same time.

Comparison was made between the conversations held over the carphone and with the front seat passenger. There was a clear difference on all conversation measures showing that performance was worse when the response was via the handsfree carphone. It is concluded that hands-free phone conversations impair driving performance more than these other common in-vehicle distractions.

Author A M Parkes, T Luke, P C Burns and T Lansdown Pages 32
Date 02/04/2007 Reference TRL664
ISBN 978-1-84608-662-5 ISSN 0968-4107

Thank you! Yet again we see an experiment where appropriate adjustment of the low priority task (talking) in order to concentrate on the priority task (driving) is seen as 'failure' to cope! From this it is concluded that mobile phone conversations impair driving performance, rather than that driving impairs conversational performance (which is what they actually found). Note that they also say:
"The results showed a complex but consistent picture of distraction. Measures of car following ability and general measures of speed control showed that all additional conversation and in-vehicle tasks produced more variable performance consistent with the additional load imposed. "
I'll read it when I get a chance, but this suggests to me that (like all similar research) they are telling the subject to 'follow' another vehicle at x metres, which drives at speed y. In the same way as concentrating on driving at the expense of conversing is considered to somehow prove the 'danger' of mobile phones, falling further back or adopting an appropriately lower speed is also a 'failure' and helps 'prove' mobile phones are dangerous.
These conclusions can only be drawn from the reported results if there is an agenda to demonise the object rather than to educate people of the actual dangers of all distractions. I strongly suspect that the grant for this work was justified in order to prove hands-free conversations distracted from driving. Their results showing the effect was the other way around, but their conclusion was (IMO) made on the money.

[Ancient]

It was of interest to examine carefully the visual behaviour of the drivers in the different task conditions. There was a significant difference between the control condition and when drivers were engaged in tasks operating the radio or ventilation systems. Drivers took their eyes off the road for longer. However, when drivers were engaged in conversations either with front seat passengers or via the hands-free carphone, the time they spent looking away from the road was actually reduced and this distraction from monitoring vehicle speed was reflected in higher speed variation. The increase in response time and number of missed road signs showed that the drivers were not paying the same level of attention to the road scene as in the control condition

The "control condition" was driving without any distraction.
So... distractions (such as operating radio or ventilation) distract people. When engaged in a study about conversations on a mobile phone, subjects respond by trying to look at the road more when conversing.( You know, that's so surprising! ) distractions however, still distract and (some) people choose to concentrate less on the non-critical task, which (in this study) is taken to prove mobile phones are dangerous.
I'll read the rest when I have time.

[martine]

Ancient: you seem to assume above the 'failure of car following ability and speed control' results in bigger space and slower speeds...I don't know that's the case. I've seen plenty of drivers following an HGV in lane 1 admitedly slow (56!) but much too close when they are on the phone.

You are picking up on the critism of some studies that they don't closely simulate the real driving and phone call situation - which from a scientific point of view is of course correct. You seem to dimiss the conclusions as a result but look at the overall trend - from all the studies I've seen...

- any distraction results in poorer driving
- any conversation is distracting
- when the other party is not in the car plus poor quality sound - does it not make sense this is considerably worse than say selecting a new radio station?

Have you ever seen a study that supports the idea that hands-free calls in car do not result in poorer driving?

I think you are missing the point...it's a bit like the climate change deniers (don't get me started!)...

[TripleS]

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[Ancient]

Ancient: you seem to assume above the 'failure of car following ability and speed control' results in bigger space and slower speeds...I don't know that's the case. I've seen plenty of drivers following an HGV in lane 1 admitedly slow (56!) but much too close when they are on the phone.

You are picking up on the critism of some studies that they don't closely simulate the real driving and phone call situation - which from a scientific point of view is of course correct. You seem to dimiss the conclusions as a result but look at the overall trend - from all the studies I've seen...

- any distraction results in poorer driving
- any conversation is distracting
- when the other party is not in the car plus poor quality sound - does it not make sense this is considerably worse than say selecting a new radio station?

Have you ever seen a study that supports the idea that hands-free calls in car do not result in poorer driving?

I think you are missing the point...it's a bit like the climate change deniers (don't get me started!)...

As I said, I'll read the paper when I have time (i.e. not this week). However, the assumption that 'failure of car following ability and speed control' means not following a lead vehicle at lead vehicle's speeds is simply one I make because that is what other papers in this area do! I see no evidence in the Executive Summary of this paper that they have changed this (poor) practice, only that what they highlight as the main finding (that conversations of their subjects suffer) does not justify their conclusion (that hands-free mobile phones are dangerous). As you say, this is poor science.

Does that matter? To me, yes it does; it is misinformation and (being so prevalent) appears to be deliberate. I'm sure that so many "researchers" would not make such basic mistakes in experimental method and in logic, if there were not a (possibly financial) incentive to do so. Losing a grant or bucking the research trend can be painful, so the pressure increases to go along with this misinformation.

I think you are missing my point: Distractions distract - this is evident. Based simply on the use of particular radio frequencies, there is a claim that particular gadgets are somehow more dangerous than others. Two-way radio (even with a hand-held mike) is not considered dangerous - but hands-free phone somehow are? Fiddling with the radio is not demonised like the mobile phone, yet this study's summary includes findings that put it in the same league. I disagree with you, attempting to find a radio station in the event of a poor signal is highly distracting and (as even the summary here says) involves looking away from the road whilst driving more than does hands-free mobile phone usage. That IS dangerous.

Rather than the (evidentialy) false claim that mobile phones are some sort of devil's gadget, I would rather see education about what actually distracts people from driving (including visualisation of things other than the road ahead), of the kind of behaviour that makes people dangerous, and proper enforcement of the existing traffic laws regarding dangerous driving and driving without due care. What I see instead is the attempt to make a (potentially useful, when used correctly and with understanding of what can be dangerous) gadget illegal, because that makes it easier to fine people.

[TripleS]

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[Horse]

One thing that concerns me about this subject is the extent to which the research, studies and tests are artificial and not representative of drivers' performances in real driving situations; and this discrepancy sounds to be quite substantial enough to lead one to misleading conclusions.

I think I posted very early in this thread about [US, Canadian?] comparison of accident invovlement Vs mobile phone use. That was as 'real world' as you get.

Edit:

Save you hunting:

Drivers using cell phones more likely to crash
New study also finds using a hands-free device won't necessarily help
updated 7/12/2005 12:03:41 AM ET 2005-07-12T04:03:41

WASHINGTON — Drivers using cellular phones are four times as likely to get into a crash that can cause injuries serious enough to send them to the hospital, said an insurance study released Tuesday.

Research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety suggests that using a hands-free device instead of a hand-held phone while behind the wheel will not necessarily improve safety.

The institute said it was the first attempt to estimate whether phone use increases the risk of an injury crash in automobiles.

“You’d think using a hands-free phone would be less distracting, so it wouldn’t increase crash risk as much as using a hand-held phone. But we found that either phone type increased the risk,” said Anne McCartt, one of the study’s authors and the institute’s vice president for research.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that male and female drivers had the same increase in risk from using a phone, along with drivers who are older and younger than age 30.

With more motorists dialing and driving than ever, lawmakers have tried to find ways of reducing driver distraction.

New York, New Jersey and the District of Columbia prohibit talking on hand-held cell phones while driving. In Connecticut, drivers will have to use hands-free devices beginning on Oct. 1. Some cities, such as Chicago, Santa Fe, N.M., and Brookline, Mass., require hands-free devices in automobiles.

But eight states — Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma and Oregon — prevent local governments from restricting cell phone use in motor vehicles, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The study found an overall fourfold increase in injury crashes when drivers were using cell phones. Researchers said there were substantially more drivers who were using their phones when they crashed compared with other similar periods of driving.

The researchers used cell phone records to compare phone use within 10 minutes before an actual crash with cell use by the same driver during the previous week.

It examined 456 drivers in Perth, Western Australia, who owned or used mobile phones and were in a crash that put them in a hospital emergency room between April 2002 and July 2004.

Each driver’s cell phone usage during a 10-minute interval prior to the accident was compared to use during at least one earlier period when no accident occurred. Each driver, in effect, served as his or her own control group in the study.

The institute had tried to conduct the study in the United States but could not get access to records from phone companies. The phone records were available in Western Australia, where hand-held phone use has been banned while driving since 2001.

More than nine out of 10 suffered at least one injury and nearly half had two or more, with the majority of the injuries being mild to moderate in severity.

Weather was not an issue in the crashes, with nearly 75 percent occurring during clear conditions. About nine out of 10 crashes involved other vehicles and more than half of the injured drivers said their crashes happened within 10 minutes of the start of the trip.

Many studies examining cell phone use in vehicles have been based on police reports, but critics say the records are unreliable because it is difficult to corroborate whether a driver was using a phone.

A survey released earlier this year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 8 percent of drivers, or 1.2 million people, were using cell phones during daylight hours last year. It represented a 50 percent increase since 2002.

Jim Champagne, chairman of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said the study reinforced the need for driver education. His organization urges state lawmakers to refrain from enacting hand-held cell phone bans because they “incorrectly send the message to drivers that as long as they are hands-free, they are safe.”

[Ancient]

Correlation /= causation I'm afraid. It is quite feasible that drivers who tend to use mobile phones in a risky way (i.e. not treating it as a non-critical secondary activity, but concentrating more on the conversation than on driving) are risk takers in other ways. Thus those who crash whilst using mobile phones may have been high-risk individuals with respect to crashing anyway, which would cause correlation between any usage and crashes.

[Silk]

If you were to start a discussion on speed, it would be a very short discussion as you would no doubt find me in agreement.

However, you started what I thought was going to be a discussion, and got upset when I didn't understand that; but now you seem determined to keep it otherwise. Why don't you want to answer those points I made?

I'm afraid others have stolen my thunder to a degree.

I simply don't accept that you can reproduce a real-world driving environment in a laboratory. In order to do that, you'd have to have at least 999 simulated journeys out of 1000 where the journey was incident free and no cartoon-like characters jumped out from behind a poorly rendered bush, as it is for most drivers.

I've driven well over a million miles, during which time I've used a mobile phone whilst driving (including hand-held in the past when it was still legal) and I've never had so much as a scratch either phone related or otherwise, and I'm sure I'm not alone - please don't read that as me showing off or being complacent, it's just simple fact. How many millions of simulated miles do you think I'd need to cover before a problem presented itself, and how would you prove it was down to using the phone? Don't forget, my phone use during this million miles is negligible.

If I decide to make a quick hands-free phone call, I simple pick my moment. I'm sure it's a similar process to the one I'd use when I make a decision as to what speed is appropriate for a particular condition.

I must admit, I find it odd that people can be so po-faced about using a mobile phone whilst driving, but gung-ho when it comes to other things that one could argue are at least as potentially dangerous.

We all have to strike a balance. The need to get to where we're going and the need to be safe, as well as the desire to have fun on the way. Often, after a long day on the road, the last thing I want to do is waste any more time finding a safe place to stop in order to make a quick call home when, using my own skill and judgement, I can simply press a button, have a short conversation, and carry on with my journey without having to stop or take my eyes off the road.

[Silk]

Are we now to understand that some hands-free systems suffer from a delay or 'lag' in the communications, and that this factor is not present in the use of hand-held phones? I have never used a hands-free system, but I am certainly not conscious of any 'lag' in communications when using a hand-held phone.
Best wishes all,
Dave.

All mobile phones produce lag to some degree, but it's well within the limits of acceptance. No hands-free system will add any of it's own, unless it has some kind of audio buffer, which would be highly unlikely.

As I've said before, I believe people are confusing lag with the inability of inferior hands-free systems to work in acceptable full duplex - this results in a time delay between finishing speaking and the device switching back to listening mode, meaning you often mis the first part of the reply and the person the other end experiences something similar, resulting in a very strained conversation. All systems have to do this to a degree to avoid audio feedback or "howlround". Modern systems such as most factory-fit systems are extremely good in this respect with negligible delay and, in my experience, superior to using the phone hand-held. If I'm parked up and want to make a phone call, I'll use hands-free in preference.

[Silk]

...Still, talking on a mobile in general (even when not driving) does require much more concentration than talking to a 'real person'.

That depends entirely on the nature of the conversation. I have found some conversations in the car require much more concentration than some phone calls. The nature of the conversation is far more important than the proximity of the interlocutors. Just as the circumstances of a particular speed is more important than the speed itself.

I am surprised you view speeding as simply a legal issue but mobile phone use as always a safety issue.

I view inappropriate speed as a safety issue in the same way I view inappropriate distractions as a safety issue.

So, you're prepared to make a judgement of what is an appropriate speed, but don't believe others capable of making similar judgements when it comes to using a mobile phone?

I suppose you could argue that it's not absolutely necessary to use a mobile phone whilst driving, but then the same thing could be said about going faster, especially if going faster is for no other reason than having fun.