Daniel Willingham--Science & Education
Hypothesis non fingo
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Op-eds
  • Videos
  • Learning Styles FAQ
  • Daniel Willingham: Science and Education Blog

Driving? Don't just ignore your phone, turn it off.

4/29/2013

 
Most everyone recognizes that talking on a cell phone while driving is a bad idea. It's distracting and so makes driving more dangerous.
Picture
It might seem that talking on a hands-free device would solve the problem, but it has been known for a while that's not so (e.g., Treffner & Barrett, 2004). Most of the distracting effect of mobile phone use is not due to looking away from the road to dial, nor the cost of holding the phone.

Talking on a phone is more demanding than talking to someone in the car: the audio signal is degraded, you have no visual information to rely on, your conversational partner doesn’t stop talking if the road situation becomes complicated, you may try to imagine being with the other person, and so on. (It is true, however, that driving is somewhat worse with hand=held than hands-free devices; Backer-Grøndahl & Sagberg, 2011.)

So what's the solution? Presumably, not answering your phone.

Now new data show that even that carries a cost.

Picture
A recent study (Holland & Rathod, 2013) had 27 young drivers use a highly realistic driving simulator, shown at right. Seven hazardous situations developed during the simulation (e.g., a pedestrian crossing the road, a car pulling out). Subjects had provided their mobile number to the experimenters, were aware that it might ring during the simulation, and that they should not answer it. The subject's cell phone rang during three of the hazards.

Seven dependent measures were collected, including crossings of the center line, collisions with other cars, and so on.

Ignoring the ringing mobile phone carried a cost. When their phone rang just prior to a hazard, subjects were more likely to hit pedestrians, to exceed the speed limit, and to cross the center line.

It is notable that these effects were more pronounced in subjects who said they usually answered their phone while driving than in subjects who said they did not. Hence, a significant contributor to the distraction may be the mental effort required to inhibit a habitual response.

What's the solution? The safest practice for drivers may be to turn the phone off, not just ignore it.

References


Backer-Grøndahl, A., & Sagberg, F. (2011). Driving and telephoning: Relative accident risk when using hand-held and hands-free mobile phones. Safety Science, 49, 324-330.

Holland, C., & Rathod, V. (2013). Influence of personal mobile phone ringing and usual intention to answer on driver error. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 50, 793-800.

Treffner, P. J., & Barrett, R. (2004). Hands-free mobile phone speech while driving degrades coordination and control. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 7, 229-246.


Comments are closed.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed


    Purpose

    The goal of this blog is to provide pointers to scientific findings that are applicable to education that I think ought to receive more attention.

    Archives

    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Categories

    All
    21st Century Skills
    Academic Achievement
    Academic Achievement
    Achievement Gap
    Adhd
    Aera
    Animal Subjects
    Attention
    Book Review
    Charter Schools
    Child Development
    Classroom Time
    College
    Consciousness
    Curriculum
    Data Trustworthiness
    Education Schools
    Emotion
    Equality
    Exercise
    Expertise
    Forfun
    Gaming
    Gender
    Grades
    Higher Ed
    Homework
    Instructional Materials
    Intelligence
    International Comparisons
    Interventions
    Low Achievement
    Math
    Memory
    Meta Analysis
    Meta-analysis
    Metacognition
    Morality
    Motor Skill
    Multitasking
    Music
    Neuroscience
    Obituaries
    Parents
    Perception
    Phonological Awareness
    Plagiarism
    Politics
    Poverty
    Preschool
    Principals
    Prior Knowledge
    Problem-solving
    Reading
    Research
    Science
    Self-concept
    Self Control
    Self-control
    Sleep
    Socioeconomic Status
    Spatial Skills
    Standardized Tests
    Stereotypes
    Stress
    Teacher Evaluation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Value-added
    Vocabulary
    Working Memory