Using your phone whilst driving has been widely cited as one of the most harmful behaviors you can engage in, with thousands of fatal accidents reported every year as a result of distracted drivers.
Researchers from MIT CSAIL believe the narrative may not be complete however. In a recent paper, they argue that much of the narrative to date has focused on the kind of task the driver was performing that resulted in them being distracted, whereas the bigger issue is the act of looking away from the road itself.
In tests, they found that the physical act of looking down was enough to prompt 1 in 3 of us to miss the driver in front touching their brakes. Indeed, it was enough to slow the driver’s reaction times by nearly half a second, which is a critical difference, especially at high speed.
“We’re not saying that the details of whatever you’re doing on your phone can’t also be an issue,” the authors say. “But in distinguishing between the task and the act of switching gears itself, we’ve shown that taking your eyes off the road is actually the bigger problem.”
Fatal distraction
When we take our eyes off of the road, the authors say that our peripheral vision comes into play, but this is limited in its ability to pick up subtle stimuli, such as brake lights. While eventually the driver in front of us braking will be detected, but the slower speed of extracting and responding can be extremely dangerous.
The findings emerged after volunteers were monitored as they watched a number of driving videos, both at an angle that’s comparable to where a smartphone might be located in a typical vehicle, and whilst looking straight at the road ahead. They were each given a distracting task to complete whilst using their peripheral vision to continue monitoring the lane in front of them for signs such as brake lights coming on.
On average, the cognitive load of performing the task slowed average response times by around 35 milliseconds, which is considerably lower than the 450 milliseconds caused by looking away from the road. The findings reinforce the fact that while our peripheral vision is hugely valuable, it’s insufficient on its own to keep us safe on the roads.
“If you’re looking down at your phone in the car, you may be aware that there are other cars around,” the researchers say. “But you most likely won’t be able to distinguish between things like whether a car is in your lane or the one next to you.”
If you are using your phone whilst driving therefore, it’s much safer if you utilize the voice-activated assistants to help you with things like directions or other functions of the device. Whilst this does render a slight cognitive cost in terms of reaction times, it’s much better than the cost imposed by looking away from the road.
Of course, it’s increasingly common for the latest vehicles to come with a heads-up display that’s built into the windscreen, but these technologies are still at a relatively early stage and have a few teething problems to iron out before they’re suitable for all vehicles.
The researchers hope their findings help to guide road safety campaigns, and plan to extend their work to explore other aspects of road safety, such as the detection of people, animals and other things that might appear on the road.
“In the big picture, we’re interested in how drivers acquire the information they need to drive – and all the things that can get in the way of that,” they conclude.
