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posted by CoolHand on Sunday October 25 2015, @11:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the hardly-surprising dept.

If you think it is okay to talk to your car infotainment system or smartphone while driving or even when stopped at a red light, think again. It takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands, University of Utah researchers found in a pair of new studies for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

One of the studies showed that it is highly distracting to use hands-free voice commands to dial phone numbers, call contacts, change music and send texts with Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri and Google Now smartphone personal assistants, though Google Now was a bit less distracting than the others.

The other study examined voice-dialing, voice-contact calling and music selection using in-vehicle information or "infotainment" systems in 10 model-year 2015 vehicles. Three were rated as moderately distracting, six as highly distracting and the system in the 2015 Mazda 6 as very highly distracting.

"Just because these systems are in the car doesn't mean it's a good idea to use them while you are driving," says University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer, senior author of the two new studies. "They are very distracting, very error prone and very frustrating to use. Far too many people are dying because of distraction on the roadway, and putting another source of distraction at the fingertips of drivers is not a good idea. It's better not to use them when you are driving."


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @08:50AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 26 2015, @08:50AM (#254587) Journal

    "Every day millions of drivers do their commute more or less on autopilot."

    Correct. And, each and every one of those drivers are INCOMPETENT TO DRIVE! They are already distracted before they ever reach for the phone, the infotainment controls, or that bottle stashed under the seat. Their attention is not on the road. Thank you for affirming what I stated in my own post.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 26 2015, @05:54PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday October 26 2015, @05:54PM (#254787) Journal

    And, each and every one of those drivers are INCOMPETENT TO DRIVE!

    Nope. Not at all incompetent. They are human. And this includes you.

    Can you honestly tell me you get back from the grocery store and remember anything about the drive other than that jerk who was driving too slow? What about yesterday's trip, or the day before?

    This is normal human behavior. Unless you are in hectic traffic, driving does not require full 100% attention all the time. And if you could find any human that does that on any routine drive, I'll show you an accident prone driver, too exhausted from the mental effort after a 20 minute drive to go any further.

    Nobody in the world, from the novice to the 20 year veteran 18 wheeler driver pays 100% attention to the road 100% of the time, or even 25% of the time. Not even you, who loves preaching from your bully pulpit. It doesn't happen in real life.

    Driving is a human activity, invented by humans, for humans. If the task required super human powers of concentration to drive down an uncrowded highway or street, humans wouldn't be doing it every day.

    Go downtown, buy a coffee, and sit on a sidewalk bench. Watch every car going by. Jot down on a piece of paper every driver you see paying 100% attention to the road. You might actually find a few, who at that moment actually were. But most of them won't be paying complete attention, and none of them will be paying attention for every minute to their destination. Yet statistically, every single driver you see if you sat there all day would arrive at their destination without any accident, without any panic stop, without anything memorable at all.

    Regardless of all the pontificating on this subject, driving is not something that requires 100% concentration.

    --
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    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @06:42PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 26 2015, @06:42PM (#254820) Journal

      "Nobody in the world, from the novice to the 20 year veteran 18 wheeler driver pays 100% attention to the road"

      I have devoted anywhere from 50% to 100% of my attention to the road. You will consider that an outrageous claim, I'm sure, but that is a fact. The typical motorist devotes less than 30% of his attention to the road, you're right. That is typical everywhere I've ever driven.

      Knowing that - you are going to attempt to justify further, unavoidable distractions? Give it a break. Lay the toys aside, and aspire to 50% awareness. You may or may not reach 50% if you try - but you damned sure won't reach it if you're making excuses. I can't understand making excuses for failure. Trained monkeys can drive, but you're making excuses for humans who fail.

      If everyone on the highway attained only 50% awareness of conditions around them, highway fatalities would plummet. I know it, and if you believe what you've written above, then you know it too.

      BTW - it isn't necessary to remember a drive. It isn't necessary to know how many driveways you passed on your drive to the grocery store, or how many intersections. It is only necessary that you are immersed in the drive, DURING the drive. Don't make the mistake of confusing situational awareness with memory.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 26 2015, @07:37PM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday October 26 2015, @07:37PM (#254840) Journal

        The typical motorist devotes less than 30% of his attention to the road.
        Knowing that - you are going to attempt to justify further, unavoidable distractions?

        Neither your 50% awareness, nor everyone else's 30% is measurable, even if your observer bias is blatant. Be careful climbing up on that pedestal, its slippery up there.

        There are just tiny windows of time where any driver is 100% attention on the road. Even in heavy traffic.
        Why? Because driving is Basically routine. Even heavy traffic driving is routine.

        You don't have to THINK much about the brake lights ahead of you to avoid them. You just have to see them. Which means not looking at your cell phone.

        Being TOLD verbally to take exit 47B on right in .6 miles is better than looking at a map, or a cell phone.
        And turning on the radio by saying "Tune to WKRP" is better than fumbling for knobs.

        Unavoidable distractions? Really? How did the story get from voice commands to your car to being unavoidable?

        You don't HAVE to do anything with your in-dash systems when traffic or road conditions don't allow it. The bitch-in-the-box (GPS) will not reach out from the dash and smack you. Saying "Turn off the radio" is better than reaching for the radio, but you can delay doing either till you've negotiated that tricky lane change.

        These voice controlled systems are less distracting than the paper maps, the cell phones, the buttons to push, or even a navigator sitting in the passenger seat. In-dash voice systems are entirely Avoidable, and routinely avoided (ignored) when the workload is high.

        Your argument seems to be that because these less distracting systems do not totally eliminate even the hint of distraction, they should not be installed. We should stick with the knobs and the buttons and the manually operated GPS navigation units, or the book of maps.

        You seem to think that anyone not 100% focused on the road ahead is incompetent (while at the same time admitting you often are only 50% aware of what is going on, and that trained monkey can navigate LA's freeways). These are laughable arguments.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @07:57PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 26 2015, @07:57PM (#254850) Journal

          Observer bias. Let's consider that. How fast have you driven? Two wheels, four wheels, six, ten, or eighteen wheels - how fast have you driven? Do you have any idea how much of a human's attention is required to maintain control of a two wheeled vehicle at speed approaching 200 mph? A four wheeled vehicle approaching 160 mph requires close to the same attention. I call it 100%. Lose focus for even a moment, and your ass is no longer an ass, it's choppped meat.

          Take an introspective person, who has experienced that 100% focus, and put him in thousands of other situations, and he can tell you how much attention he is devoting to those situations.

          My passengers have often been annoyed because I don't pay a lot of attention to them while I am driving. Driving is not a social event with me. My attention almost never drops below 50%. I say "almost". Yes, I've been distracted. But, I KNOW when I am distracted.

          Now, bottom line - distracted people make mistakes, and crash. Crashing is a FAILURE. You can't paint it any other way. You can't make excuses. The courts excuse it, so long as A: nobody dies and B: there is liability insurance to cover damages. But, crashes are still FAILURES.

          While you are attempting to analyze my opinions on voice activated controls, you are failing to properly address my more important position. If you can't pay attention to your driving, you are not competent to drive. It's really that simple.

          You are the one who was bragging on all the things that you can do, while driving. You're the one who seemed to be making excuses for all those people who fail to control their vehicles. It's obvious that your infatuation with gadgets drives your argument. Go back to TFA, and look at that pretty chart. The various auto manufacturer's controls have been evaluated, and graded on their efficiency, and their potential to be distracting. The BEST of them can distract you, while the worst distracts you exponentially more.

          Screwing around with your toys is not the best survival tactic. The charts tell you that much, unless you simply reject the study out of hand.

          Empirical data gathered on accidents suggest that rejecting this study is foolish.

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 26 2015, @10:16PM

            by frojack (1554) on Monday October 26 2015, @10:16PM (#254897) Journal

            Take an introspective person, who has experienced that 100% focus, and put him in thousands of other situations, and he can tell you how much attention he is devoting to those situations.

            Sorry, but thats just bullshit.
            An introspective person? Define that!
            Any introspective person would NEVER know they were concentrating 100% on a driving task, because there would be no synapses available to handle the introspection. If you are evaluating your level of concentration you are already distracted.

            I pretty much DO reject the study out of hand. Its entire setup is distracting, forced distraction at that, with someone breathing down their neck from the back seat, and the entire experimental design devoid of controls, and full of forced actions and choices that an attentive driver would otherwise ignore, in a cockpit festooned with wires and cameras, in a strange car on strange roads. How could a driver possibly give 100% attention to driving while at the same time being forced to report a flashing LED bolted to their head? This design is laughable!

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @10:38PM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 26 2015, @10:38PM (#254914) Journal

              Whatever - you're certainly entitled to your opinions.

              I'll remind you of the studies demonstrating that people who know they are good multi-taskers usually suck at multitasking - and those who don't rate their multitasking abilities very highly tend to be better than they think. That, plus, women are generally better than us guys.

              http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/09/health/your-brain-multitasking/ [cnn.com]

              Bullshit? The real bullshit are claims that people can drive, and perform other tasks at the same time, while maintaining high-level efficiency at one or both tasks.

              I tend to agree with you that the methodology of the study was probaably a distraction, in and of itself - but screwing with electronic toys remains a major distraction.

              • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:26AM

                by frojack (1554) on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:26AM (#254950) Journal

                I'm not claiming messing with toys isn't a distraction. And far too many people do it when they shouldn't.

                But talking to car is better than fiddling with the car for those things that everybody is going to do anyway.
                HVAC, Radio, Navigation, aren't going away any time soon.

                --
                No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.