{"id":4733,"date":"2018-07-10T11:47:16","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T11:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roadxs.com\/?p=4733"},"modified":"2025-01-13T20:50:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T20:50:04","slug":"driven-to-distraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roadxs.com\/insights\/driven-to-distraction\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Driven to Distraction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you completely sure of who is controlling your vehicle at all times?\u00a0 Believe it or not, we are getting lazier and lazier when it comes to driving \u2013 through no fault of our own.\u00a0 Semi-autonomous driving (which is a posh way of saying assisted driving) is here to stay.\u00a0 In fact, safety features are now becoming more of an attraction to customers when purchasing cars than speed and size of engine.<\/p>\n

Gadgets are no longer limited to top of the range vehicles or \u2018Bond Cars\u2019.\u00a0 According to Auto Pacific, 90% of customers see safety as a primary factor when choosing a vehicle.\u00a0 In 2013 this was 82%.\u00a0 Blind spot information systems and reverse assisted parking rank now among the top 15 most requested features.\u00a0 Safety has always been important to motorists, but as we\u2019ve seen more advanced safety features arrive as standard within our vehicles, we have also seen an increase in the percentage of consumers who rate safety features of high importance when shopping for a new vehicle.<\/p>\n

However, the first and second most sought after features remain tied directly to a motorist\u2019s derri\u00e8re, namely a power driver\u2019s seat and heated front seats. Most amenities motorists say they\u2019re seeking in their next vehicles tend to be either practical, such as easy-to-clean upholstery, or luxury-oriented like leather seats and a heated steering wheel.<\/p>\n

Most consumers however are still yet to feel comfortable with the concept of a fully self-driving car.\u00a0 They feel that autonomous driving<\/a> just isn\u2019t here yet and of course they are right (find out more here).\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt however, that when the niggles are resolved within self-driving cars they are going to re-structure the planet as we know it.\u00a0 If you think about it, the self-driving car is a much more realistic expectation of the future than a flying car.<\/p>\n

The Biggest Distraction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The biggest menace currently for distracting any driver is the mobile phone.\u00a0 Unlike self-driving cars the law has caught up on this one.\u00a0\u00a0 Since last year if you are caught using your mobile phone whilst driving in any capacity, it is immediately 6 points on your license \u2013 this includes if it is in a hands-free holder.\u00a0 Apple have even built in a notification warning if are driving and asks you to confirm whether you are driving when opening \/ unlocking the phone when moving at speed.\u00a0 If you think about it, this will have saved lives already.\u00a0 You can use hands-free phones \u2013 but, as long as you don’t press any buttons (including sat navs) whilst driving.\u00a0 If the police think you\u2019re distracted and not in control of your vehicle you could still get stopped and penalised.<\/p>\n

Studies all over the world have been conducted around the world and conclude that use of mobile phones while driving is dangerous and pervasive<\/a>.\u00a0 Texting whilst driving also still appears to be a significant problem, especially among younger drivers Studies conducted in both simulators and in the real world have shown that drivers on a mobile<\/a> phone reduce their visual scanning of the road ahead, are more likely to weave within their lane on bends and are slower to respond to hazards.<\/p>\n

Holding your phone whilst driving is a major problem, because not only is your eye not focusing on the road, but having one hand off the steering wheel means it\u2019s harder to respond to corners and last-minute corrections.<\/p>\n

There is another problem which is highlighted in studies.\u00a0 The act of conversation itself is a distraction. If the level of driving difficulty grows (placing greater demand \u00a0on the driver\u2019s concentration), this will, in turn, escalate their need for increased \u2018cognitive processing\u2019.\u00a0 The complexity on the cognitive processing required at that time to handle a conversation, also requires depth of thought which means the brain is not fully focused on the task at hand.\u00a0 It means that two modes of thoughts are fighting for resources.\u00a0 If we factor in the conversation higher than the need for concentration on the road, then it\u2019s likely a crash will happen.\u00a0 We cannot attend to things all at the same time.\u00a0 We are best placed to deal with one task at a time, not multi-task which we are asked by design to do time and time again whilst driving.<\/p>\n

A study, undertaken by Marcel Just at Carnegie Mellon University had participants drive along a winding road<\/a> in a simulator, controlled via a mouse, while lying in an MRI scanner to record brain activity.\u00a0 In one test participants had to engage in a sentence comprehension task while driving (which is like engaging in a mobile phone conversation). Compared to the control trial, steering behaviour in this \u201cdual-task\u201d condition was much worse, with more collisions against the road edges.<\/p>\n

What the Brain is Doing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the controlled condition, there was a lot of activity in the parietal lobe of the brain, considered to be vital for spatial processing. During the dual task however, activation became apparent in the temporal lobes, reflecting the processing of the auditory messages. This increase in temporal-lobe activation corresponded with a significant decrease in parietal-lobe activation, clearly suggesting that the auditory task was commandeering attention, and diverting it away from the safety-critical driving task.<\/p>\n

What About Hands Free?
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Modern cars are built with hands free solutions, so what\u2019s the problem?\u00a0 Well, you could say holding a conversation on the phone is no different to conversing with a passenger in the car with you.\u00a0 Interestingly though, evidence suggests otherwise.\u00a0 The big difference between in-car and mobile phone conversations is that the passenger can see what the driver sees, it\u2019s also another set of eyes.\u00a0 They are also present and, in the moment, travelling with you.\u00a0 For example, if you are bringing the car onto a motorway coming down a slip way and feed into traffic, the passenger will likely remain quiet whilst you perform the manoeuvre.\u00a0 The person on the phone however has no way of knowing your current actions.\u00a0 They have no shared view.<\/p>\n

Imagine holding a conversation knowing this whilst you factor in fiddling with the radio or a setting in your car.\u00a0 You can see how the brain is being literally driven to distraction, almost through no fault of our own.\u00a0 I wonder how many of us get in the car and arrive at work wondering how we got there?\u00a0 Likely because we were listening to our favourite radio station or tracks via our mobile.<\/p>\n

Designers of mobile phones and mobile phone software deliberately design them to be addictive and to grab our attention.\u00a0 Phones are built to distract us and whilst car companies have now encompassed this into their designs to reduce the need to pick them up with hand\u2019s free features, perhaps we need to ask ourselves, do we really need to be this distracted whilst driving?\u00a0 Perhaps we should just be more focused on the important task at hand \u2013 simply driving, safely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you completely sure of who is controlling your vehicle at all times?\u00a0 Believe it or not, we are getting lazier and lazier when it comes to driving \u2013 through no fault of our own.\u00a0 Semi-autonomous driving (which is a posh way of saying assisted driving) is here to stay.\u00a0 In fact, safety features are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insights"],"yoast_head":"\nAre You Driven to Distraction? Make Sure you Stay in Control<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are you completely sure of who is controlling your vehicle at all times? 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