Doing it as a conscious task is why new drivers are accident prone. You're not good at it until it's at a muscle memory level.
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Distracted driving--texting is the real danger
- Thread starter Loren Pechtel
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Doing it as a conscious task is why new drivers are accident prone. You're not good at it until it's at a muscle memory level.
bilby
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It's cute when people get 'driving' confused with 'operating the controls of a motor vehicle'.
Any moron can do the latter. Driving is not getting the car to go in a given direction at a given speed; it is knowing how to choose what direction and speed are appropriate in a rapidly changing environment with multiple potential hazards, such that the chance of those hazards becoming real is minimised.
The former is trivial, and can be done even while distracted; people who think that's the whole task are lethally dangerous.
The latter requires constant and conscious vigilance.
spikepipsqueak
My Brane Hertz
You are absolutely right, except for the "conscious" bit.
There are way too many inputs to be able to serve them consciously. A good driver is doing something similar to a computer, processing multiple signals on varying interrupt levels. When something happens suddenly, the good (read experienced) driver has generally reacted before they are conscious of the threat. The inexperienced driver will react too but it may not be the correct response.
Phone conversations take attention from the global task and switch off that instinctive awareness of the driving environment in ways that in-car conversation and listening to the radio don't seem to do.
ronburgundy
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Cognitive loads don't just impede conscious tasks, but also unconscious processing too. Unconscious processing has finite limits too, and what is critical for safe driving is that various unconscious signals of potential danger rise above the threshold into consciousness when appropriate. IOW, that your conscious attention become drawn towards task relevant information. This is impeded by cognitive load. Not only will a cell phone conversation make you less likely to be paying attention to what other drivers on the road are doing, but even if your unconscious mind picks up on a driver coming into your lane without signaling, that fact will take longer to register into consciousness so that you can react to it.
We get away with somewhat unconscious driving in ideal, predictable, safe conditions where nothing that requires reactions occurs. That doesn't mean that focused conscious attention isn't critical for avoiding accidents, which is as or more important to road safety as not doing things to cause them.
Source please. Oh,forgot you do not use sources.
The research isn't as facile as the article makes it seem, though I didn't have a link to the original as I heard the long version on the radio. What they confirmed in the study was that the cognitive and attentional load for mental visualization was in the same subsystem in the brain which processes active visualization.
And of course there's multitasking. Dedicated parts of the brain are responsible for for processing of different specific types of information at the same time. As well there are general purpose processing capabilities, subsystems that are responsible for composition and correlation, and on top of that unconscious and conscious executive functions that are all happening concurrently (and they must) for us to be able to do what we do.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the brain is not something that you just dump something on like DOT HS 808-635 thinks. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you're trying to drive, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
whichphilosophy
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Texting while driving is a/the leading cause of accidents.
http://safety.trw.com/texting-while-driving-now-leading-cause-of-us-teen-deaths/0710/
AUTO SAFETY NEWS AND EXPERTS INSIGHT Posted 10 June 2013
Texting while driving now leading cause of US teen deaths
exting while driving is now the leading cause of death among teenagers – surpassing drinking and driving, according to a study by Cohen Children’s Medical Center. Disturbing statistics from the report include:
More than 3,000 teens die each year in crashes caused by texting while driving
Approximately 2,700 teens are killed in drunk driving accidents
More than 50 percent of teens admit to texting while driving
In addition, Virginia Tech studies show drivers are 23 times more likely to be in an accident if they are texting while driving. And while surveys show distracted driving is becoming more socially unacceptable among teens, these young drivers continue to text while driving, especially when they are alone. Bridgestone Americas Inc. found that of 2,000 young drivers, 71 percent said reading and receiving texts and emails is unacceptable while driving – yet 45 percent admit to doing it. Of those:
95 percent read texts and emails when alone – 32 percent do so when with friends or parents
More than 90 percent admitted to posting on social media sites while behind the wheel – but only 29 percent when with others
75 percent admit to watching a video when alone – compared to 45 percent when with others
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/21/cell-phone-boom-leading-to-rise-in-distracted-driving-safety-group.html
More phones, more wrecks? Distracted driving on the rise
24 May 2015
Recently, the National Safety Council (NSC) released data showing that27 percent of car crashes—or 1,535,490 in 2013—were caused by cell phone use.
The boom in cell phone use is adding to the already costly problem of road injuries and deaths.
http://www.distraction.gov/stats-research-laws/facts-and-statistics.html
Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55mph, that's enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded. (2009, VTTI)
http://safety.trw.com/texting-while-driving-now-leading-cause-of-us-teen-deaths/0710/
AUTO SAFETY NEWS AND EXPERTS INSIGHT Posted 10 June 2013
Texting while driving now leading cause of US teen deaths
exting while driving is now the leading cause of death among teenagers – surpassing drinking and driving, according to a study by Cohen Children’s Medical Center. Disturbing statistics from the report include:
More than 3,000 teens die each year in crashes caused by texting while driving
Approximately 2,700 teens are killed in drunk driving accidents
More than 50 percent of teens admit to texting while driving
In addition, Virginia Tech studies show drivers are 23 times more likely to be in an accident if they are texting while driving. And while surveys show distracted driving is becoming more socially unacceptable among teens, these young drivers continue to text while driving, especially when they are alone. Bridgestone Americas Inc. found that of 2,000 young drivers, 71 percent said reading and receiving texts and emails is unacceptable while driving – yet 45 percent admit to doing it. Of those:
95 percent read texts and emails when alone – 32 percent do so when with friends or parents
More than 90 percent admitted to posting on social media sites while behind the wheel – but only 29 percent when with others
75 percent admit to watching a video when alone – compared to 45 percent when with others
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/21/cell-phone-boom-leading-to-rise-in-distracted-driving-safety-group.html
More phones, more wrecks? Distracted driving on the rise
24 May 2015
Recently, the National Safety Council (NSC) released data showing that27 percent of car crashes—or 1,535,490 in 2013—were caused by cell phone use.
The boom in cell phone use is adding to the already costly problem of road injuries and deaths.
http://www.distraction.gov/stats-research-laws/facts-and-statistics.html
Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55mph, that's enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded. (2009, VTTI)
Exactly. Threat identification and the first reaction happens before one has consciously become aware of the problem.
Except the data doesn't support this except in the case of new drivers (the ones for which it is still a conscious act.) The phone is no more distracting than other sources of audio.
It's that in the car most passengers know not to get into any serious conversation with the driver.
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No surprise at all. Anything that takes your eyes off the road is dangerous!
spikepipsqueak
My Brane Hertz
This is where we disagree, and I think it's connected to the visualisation issue mentioned earlier. Visualising the person on the other end of the phone detracts from attention to the proximal environment.
Also mechanical distraction due to call setup/answer, and poor reception, and closing the call, are elements more similar to the distractions associated with texting, which was the original subject of the thread.
Placing the call is a different matter--one shouldn't be dialing other than by voice while on the road.
Using a mobile at all when driving is the whole point!
Except the data doesn't support that except for inexperienced drivers. Hands-free vs handheld is the same. The problem is people getting too involved in conversations, not the phone itself.
I have not seen this data.Could you show us?
I have before.
ronburgundy
Contributor
No, the data show that mere initiating or answering a call (hands free or not) is highly harmful to driving. It also shows that a conversation with a passenger is not nearly as harmful as a phone conversation. In person conversations are more sensitive to actual road conditions, passengers stop talking (and thus stop distracting the driver) when conditions require more attention, like lane changing, intersections, etc.. Plus passengers are another set of senses to attend to conditions. There is also data suggesting that people are transported mentally to where their conversation partner is. People on a phone are less likely to notice something happening around them (whether driving or sitting in a restaurant) than people talking with another person in the same place.
Hand held adds extra problems, but hands free is dangerous and both far worse than a conversation with a passenger or listening to the radio.
bilby
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Loren's favourite reference source.
It must have been glorious to live in that distant golden age of 'before', when Loren's assertions were backed by hard evidence. What a sad loss to humanity it is that those great days are now past.
TSwizzle
Let's Go Brandon!
For all the use of phones I see daily, I'm surprised there are not more accidents so it can't be that dangerous. It's irritating when you are stopped at a signal and the person in front doesn't see the green light to go because they are dicking around on their phone. but that's not particularly dangerous, just very annoying.
Dicking around on their phone while driving is dangerous.
TSwizzle
Let's Go Brandon!
Sure it is. But dicking around on the phone while stopped at a red light is not dangerous. It's a nuisance but it's not dangerous.