Road trips have been around almost since the automobile was invented. In much of the world, and certainly in the US, driving vacations are an important part of family life.
According to the US Travel Association, nearly eight in ten (79 percent) vacation trips were by automobile. When I was growing up our family took many road trips. By the time I was 19, our family’s road trips took us to each of the 48 contiguous US states.
Other than the “Geography Game,” listening to an AM radio and, in those days, reading Burma Shave signs beside the road, there wasn’t much to distract my parents while driving during our early road trips. Now, the potential distractions in today’s electronically sophisticated cars are almost limitless.
Cars have AM, FM, and SiriusXM radios. They can play CDs, music and audio books on connected MP3 players, smartphones and built-in hard drives. Drivers can connect their cellphones wirelessly to cars, even rental cars, to make calls and text. Many cars have extensive voice menus, dials and mice to navigate through complex music, phone and navigation systems.
The use of any of these can be highly distracting to the driver, and that’s a serious problem. According to studies, it’s estimated that distracted driving contributes to 16 percent of all fatal crashes, which leads to about 5,000 deaths on US roads each year.
A 2009 “naturalist driving study,” completed by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) concerning cell phone use and distracted driving using sensors and eye monitors on drivers while in traffic, has been used by legislatures and car manufacturers to help shape laws, and design cars to reduce the problems of distracted driving. In 2013, the VTTI study was updated.
From the study it was concluded that:
• Driver text messaging took a driver’s eyes off the road for the longest time and increased the risk of crashes/near crashes by 23 times compared to undistracted drivers.
• Drivers making calls from a hand-held phone, reaching for the phone, looking up a contact, and dialing the call, increased risk by 3 times compared to undistracted drivers.
• Drivers, when making a hands-free call, still interacted with their cellphone for half the call.
• Drivers are generally safe and attentive as long as their eyes are on the road and their hands on the steering wheel.
In 2013, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAAFTS), partnering with researchers at the University of Utah, took the VTTI “naturalistic driving study” a step further. They studied drivers “naturalistically” in simulators and on the road, and added to the methodology, measuring brain activity and assessing indicators of driver performance. Their study looked at mental distractions, along with the physical distractions examined in the VTTI study.
The AAAFTS study reached the following conclusions:
• Mental distractions can dangerously affect drivers. “Just because a driver’s eyes are on the road, and hands are on the wheel, does not mean they are safe — hands-free is not risk-free.
• Attention is key to safe driving, yet technologies found in many cars today designed to add safety, such as hands-free cellphone use and voice commands to run car accessories, can create mental distractions, which may make drivers believe they are safer than they actually are.
• Navigating complex menu systems via voice to run automobile navigations systems and smartphones are highly distracting to drivers. Somewhat less distracting is listening and composing messages and navigating simple menus. Less distracting than those activities, but nevertheless distracting to drivers, is adjusting radios, music players and the car’s HVAC system.
• Speech-to-text technology is highly distracting, followed by hand-held cellphone use, talking with passengers in the car, speaking on a hands-free cellphone, and listening to an audio book, radio or music player.
Not surprisingly, the Consumer Electronics Association, a trade group representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies, took issue with a AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study.
Examining both studies, it’s clearly important for drivers to minimize distractions to the extent possible whenever on a road trip, or even driving near home. Here are tips I gathered from the studies to reduce driver distraction to increase safety on a road trip.
• To give your full attention to driving, take care of anything you can which might be a driver distraction before you get behind the wheel.
• Never text when driving. Avoid making and receiving phone calls while driving, even if hands-free, except for essential calls. If the call will be longer than a few moments and/or require any real concentration, pull to the side of the road for its duration.
• Setup your GPS, decide on your route, and check traffic before you begin driving.
• Stow loose gear before you leave, so you won’t be tempted to reach for it while driving.
• Eat before and after you drive, not while you drive, and never eat messy foods in the car which might take your attention away from your driving.
• When traveling with children, if they need your attention, pull safely to the side of the road to care for them. Don’t reach to the back seat while driving.
Here is another link to programs that deal with distracted driving caused by cell phone usage.
(Image: On the Road, Caen, Normandy, France by Ned S. Levi – Copyright © 2009 NSL Photography, All Rights Reserved)
After many years working in corporate America as a chemical engineer, executive and eventually CFO of a multinational manufacturer, Ned founded a tech consulting company and later restarted NSL Photography, his photography business. Before entering the corporate world, Ned worked as a Public Health Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a well known corporate, travel and wildlife photographer, Ned travels the world writing about travel and photography, as well as running photography workshops, seminars and photowalks. Visit Ned’s Photography Blog and Galleries.
