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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."
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 26 2015, @07:57PM
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
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
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
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.