DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION
A
Distracted driving may not get the
publicity given to alcohol, drugs and
speed, but it is thought to play a role
in one third of fatal and serious injury
crashes on roads. And while there is a
strong community opposition to drink
drivers or people who speed, our attitude
towards making phone calls or reading
text messages is much more relaxed.
Surveys for the Office of Road Safety
have found that while 96 per cent of
people believe reading and sending text
messages is distracting, 54 per cent admit
reading texts and 3 5 per cent have sent
them while driving. About 85 per cent
of people think mobile phone use is
distracting but 46 per cent said they take
calls on the road and 36 per cent concede
making them.
Then there are all the other
distractions, from resolving arguments
between the kids to trying to navigate
with a map book on your lap. Acting
Sergeant Chris Green, from the Police
Traffic Enforcement Group, said
distracted driving is extremely common-even in plain sight of the police.
'You see all sorts of things: people
reading newspapers, putting on makeup,
having their breakfast, reading books and
maps,' he said.
'Map books are very common but you
see people with all sorts of documents.
They have busy lives so they might
have their information out for a doctor's
appointment, not just at traffic lights but
driving along.
'If there is a marked police car, lots of
people will change their behaviour, but
with some of this behaviour, they are so
caught up they don't notice the police car
right next to them.'
B
Acting Sgt Green said drivers can
feel falsely confident about the road
conditions, particularly on familiar routes,
but an accident can occur in seconds.
'On the roads the environment
changes every day. You could drive down
that street a hundred times but on the
101st time, there could be road works or
a pedestrian that steps out-anything can
happen,' he said.
Despite recent changes to laws
regarding the use of mobile phones-with
a fine and three demerit points for people
using them illegally-Acting Sgt Green
said drivers still flout the law.
Police are handing out an average of
225 infringement notices a week, down on
past years' figures, but still very high.
'We are out there enforcing it but people
are still using the phones on a daily basis
and as they become more sophisticated,
they are reading emails, sending messages,
watching videos,' he said. 'If you are on the
phone, you are not concentrating on what
is going on around you.'
C
Identifying the exact role of distraction
in crashes is difficult but the RA.C's Glen
Walker said people making or defending
claims are quick to point out when the
other driver is at fault. 'When you speak
to someone to settle a claim they will say
"the other driver was too busy putting
on lipstick and rear-ended me,"' said
Mr Walker, Manager of the Technical
Claims Unit. 'Getting distracted while
changing a CD is a very common one. So
is reaching into the glove box. There was
one guy who drove into a house because
he was getting a bit amorous with the
woman in the car.' Mr Walker said some
of the stories of distracted driving can
be amusing but in his previous work as a
police officer he had seen fatal accidents
caused by a momentary lapse of attention.
'It only takes just a little bit of distraction
and things get very dangerous very fast.'
D
Professor Mark Stevenson is a leading
road safety researcher and director of the
Accident Research Centre and School of
Public Health and Preventive Medicine
at Mon·ash University. He said the risks
of mobile phones in cars have been well
established, with major studies showing
any use by a driver raises the risk of an
accident.
He and other researchers have
examined the phone records of hundreds
of drivers attending hospital after a crash,
finding the risk of crashing is four times
greater if the driver is using their mobile
phone-regardless of whether it is handheld or hands-free. While that may sound
surprising, there are crucial differences
between a conversation with a passenger
and one on a mobile, he said.
'There have been laboratory studies
that have shown that if you have a driver
holding a conversation with a passenger,
the passenger will moderate the
conversation because they are scanning
the scene in front of the vehicle and they
can see the situation changing for the
driver,' Professor Stevenson said.
'If you are at a complex intersection
with a lot of traffic, lots of things around,
what happens is that the passenger will
moderate the conversation and not get
into a heated debate right at that moment.
That doesn't happen on the phone.' The
pressure of maintaining a conversation in
tricky road conditions reduces the driver's
ability to react.
'It is the cognitive processing that's
delayed-and that means reaction
time and the manoeuvres required all
slow down as a result of the phone
conversation,' he said.
Because of growing evidence
that even hands-free phones can be
dangerous, several Australian states
have banned mobile phones in cars for
P Platers and the Draft National Road
Safety Strategy released this year even
suggested that there was evidence to
support a total ban on all mobile phone
use while driving.
'We know from our research that it still
increases the risk of crashing almost fourfold,' Professor Stevenson said.
'It's just not going far enough.'
E
If mobile phone use has been problematic
for driver distraction, the next wave of
in-car technology could be worse. In the
US, the issue has received considerable
public debate in the wake of high-profile
cases, including a state police officer
who crashed and killed two sisters after
travelling at 200km/h while talking on the
mobile and emailing from his laptop. In
January, the US Transportation Secretary
met with American carmakers, asking
them to limit the use of distracting
technology in vehicles. At the same time,
however, struggling manufacturers hope
that bundling technology into cars might
boost sales, particularly among young
drivers.
Car manufacturer Ford is updating a
system that will allow text messages and
Facebook updates to be read to the driver,
while other manufacturers are looking for
ways to give drivers updates about nearby
amenities and expand the dashboard
display with USB ports, bigger maps and
wi-fi access.
'The technology is developing so fast
that our understanding of how much
it increases our risk of crashing is not
keeping up,' Professor Stevenson said.
'Are these things truly there to
benefit us or are they just increasing the
distraction factor for drivers?'
While technology is helping cause the
problems, Professor Stevenson believed
it could also be used to fight distraction
by switching off all phones and other
devices-whether drivers want it to
or not.
'There is potential down the track with
in-vehicle technologies that you could
block any transmission while the car is in
motion,' he said.
'That would be a passive interventionyou don't need any behavioural change to
ensure that happens.'
RAC Head of Member Advocacy
Matt Brown said members are already
concerned by the level of mobile phone use
they see on the roads and believes more
care is needed before increasing the load.
'We want cars to be comfortable and
user-friendly, but the safety of the driver
and other road users has to be the top
priority,' he said.
'You wouldn't go to a factory floor
and clutter it up with devices that would
take the worker's mind off the machinery.
What happens in a car is no different.'
'In fact the law requires employers to
remove any potential hazards.'
F
An open driving track with just a few orange
cones to navigate doesn't sound like much
of a challenge-but the mother and son
who navigated the course for the RAC found
it much tougher once they were asked to do
something else at the same time.
Kim, 52, said she was used to using a
mobile phone in her own car through a
Bluetooth system and found concentrating
on buttons and the road at the same
time difficult. 'I don't even dial my phone
normally; it's voice activated and I just tell
it to call the person and it does,' she said.
'It is really difficult to try to dial and talk
and manage the phone and drive through
the obstacles at the same time.' Kim found
talking hands-free on the mobile relatively
easy but struggled with texting and said
programming the car's GPS system was
almost impossible.
Kim's son Matt, 21, was a bit more
confident that he would be able to text
while driving but negotiating the orange-cone chicanes and then a tight lane,
designed to represent driving over a
bridge, proved too difficult. 'I clipped the
bridge and if it was real I guess I would
have been getting wet,' he said. 'Texting
was definitely harder than I expected and
programming the GPS was very difficult.'
RAC driver trainer Dave Meinen,
who conducted the assessment, said the
tests proved that even minor distractions
could compromise a motorist's ability
to drive. 'We tested the drivers against a
range of distractions and every single one
of them had an impact on core driving
competencies, including driver attention,
accuracy, lane control, speed control,
hazard perception and reaction time,'
Mr Meinen said. 'At the end of the day
good drivers just drive; they don't get
distracted.'
Source: Ruth Callaghan, RAC Horizons magazine,
June 2011
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