By Aaron Lindstrom, Enterprise Fleet Management
Driving performance is affected more by cell phone use than previously realized according to a recently released study from the National Safety Council’s Journal of Safety Research. But for commercial drivers who must frequently deal with distracting activities as part of their job, the results are particularly noteworthy.
The study notes that for commercial drivers, in-vehicle tasks can affect safety, as well as drivers’ perceptions of their own performance. The study also outlines the steep costs to employers of off-the-job crashes due to distractions, compounded by a nationwide increase in the length of daily commutes.
Forty-one drivers participated in the study by demonstrating their abilities in three key areas: lane keeping, speed control, and quick response to a changing traffic light. First, they demonstrated these abilities while performing relatively easy tasks such as recalling, adding and repeating simple numbers. Next, they demonstrated their abilities by performing more complicated activities such as developing and asking yes-or-no questions to identify objects while driving.
The study concluded that drivers are not aware of their own performance loss due to distractions. Specifically, “results showed that the more difficult activity reduced driving safety more than the easer one. Yet, they also showed that drivers did not recognize one activity as more difficult than the other and estimated no difference between the activities’ affect on their driving abilities.”
National Safety Council President and CEO Janet Froetscher specifically identified cell phone use while driving as one of the most urgent safety issues. In January 2009, the National Safety Council (NSC) became the first national organization to suggest a total ban on cell phones while driving. The NSC based its decision on scientific estimates that “cell phone use while driving contributes to 6 percent of crashes – or 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, 12,000 serious injuries, and 2,600 deaths each year. The same research put the annual financial toll of cell phone-related crashes at $43 billion.”
According to Froetscher, hands-free devices don’t make cell phones any safer based on several studies indicating that the principal risk is the cognitive distraction. “Studies also show that driving while talking on a cell phone is extremely dangerous and puts drivers at a four-times greater crash risk,” Froetscher stated.
The study, led by William J. Horrey of the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, based in Hopkinton, Mass., is available by entering the title “Journal Safety Research, Volume 40, Issue I” at www.sciencedirect.com.