ASSIGNED to Prof. Script

ANALYZING A VISUAL: TEXING WHILE DRIVING

Rob Reynolds

Con

The growing use of electronic devices build into car dashboards mostly grows out of studies that have found a greater risk from holding a cell phone and conversing over talking “hands free.” Automakers use some of these studies to explain how adding hands-free texting, e-mailing, Web-surfing, social networking, and talking apps into their infotainment systems make you “safer.”

However, these so-called naturalistic studies have inherent characteristics that make relying on their results as the basis for these assumptions problematic, at best.

The studies themselves rely on observation and measurement of physical data using vehicles rigged with expensive cameras and monitoring equipment in the hopes that “events” (crashes) and “near events” can be recorded and later examined in detail.

But several points should be raised about their results:

• Participants know they are driving rigged vehicles, so it’s questionable whether they are driving “naturally.”

• The cost of the equipment and the fact that crashes/near crashes are infrequent events in most drivers’ experience make both the sample size and the target for the study (crash causation) too small to draw conclusion from.

• None of the monitoring equipment measures so-called “cognitive distractions of the brain caused by cell phone and other applications.”

The majority of research on distractions with cell phones and smartphones has been done with epidemiological and lab research. In fact, at least thirty studies put the increased risk of conversing on a cell phone while driving (handheld or hand-free) at four times the risk of driving alone. All of this is being ignored by automakers in lieu of a select few studies that create a favorable argument for these applications.

In addition, automakers have said that “drivers will use these apps anyway; we just want to make it safer.” I recall cigarette makers using similar arguments for adding filters to cigarettes (that doesn’t work either – the behavior is unsafe regardless).

Think if we had used naturalistic studies to address intoxicated driving. Would we rarely rig cars with cameras and just wait and see or would/did we rely upon actual crash data and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels?

Impairment is impairment, whether it’s temporary or constant. Four times increased crash risk is equal to the crash risk of driving at .08 BAC, the legal in most states. We can only reduce distracted-driving crash rates by banning the activity – not trying to enhance the experience.

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1. In paragraph 2, Reynolds speak of “so-called naturalistic studies,” and in paragraph 7 he indicates that the studies were not “naturalistic.” What does he mean by “naturalistic studies”?

2. In paragraph 3, why does Reynolds speak of vehicles “equipped with cameras”? (He uses “rigged” again in the next paragraph.) And why does he put the word events within quotation marks?

3. In paragraph 6 Reynolds introduces the behavior of cigarette makers decades ago. Do you find the comparison relevant and therefore helpful, or not? Why?