Hosking et al. (2011) investigated the effects of sending text messages on young and inexperienced divers’ performance. Various issues contribute to poor road safety, and driver distraction is among the leading causes of accidents today. Young drivers have less developed skills in driving; hence have to input far greater mind resources in the exercise as compared to experienced drivers. Distractions on the road have a range of undesirable effects such as poor visual processing of the road environment, incomplete motor control, and incomplete or reduced cognitive processing (Hosking et al., 2011). Even greater concerns lie in the desire of young drivers to engage in text messaging while driving despite the danger that practice poses to road safety. The researchers utilized driving simulation equipment to investigate the effects of text messaging on young drivers’ performance. Participants had less than six months of driving experience and reported using their phones to send messages while driving. The researchers found that text messaging while driving adversely affected the drivers’ visual concentration, ability to maintain lane positions as well as the possibility of following lane change signs.
Most studies have investigated the effects of distractions on road safety with a focus on various devices adapted for in-vehicle use, such as navigation maps and music systems. However, there is little knowledge of how the driver’s experience impacts road safety, considering the existence of distractions. It is extremely difficult or impossible to develop primary research on the effects of text messaging on drivers using real driving scenarios. The researchers thus opted for a driving simulator, which varied the speed from 50 km/h to 80 km/h with varied real-world scenarios such as traffic lights, changing lanes and pedestrians crossing (Hosking et al., 2011). Given the nature of the driving simulator inexperience of the drivers with the technology, training was necessary before the actual data collection. The driving data was collected at 15 seconds intervals with emphasis on the signal to respond to text messages as well as attendance to the factored in driving measures. The results showed that visual distraction was a major contributor to poor road safety, as most of the time was spent looking inside the vehicle. Furthermore, drivers missed an average of 24 lanes when texting as compared to 10 lane misses when not texting (Hosking et al., 2011). Again, the chances of entering another lane were significantly higher when texting than when not texting. In the context of the cognitive psychological concept under investigation, that is attention and visual concentration, the findings on lane misses highlight the adverse effects of distraction activity on attention. Poor attention resulting from texting behavior is attributable to diminished visual and mental concentration.
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The authors hypothesized that various driving attentional demands would be negatively impacted by the need to retrieve and reply to text messages. Driving control was also affected by the text messaging distraction, as observed in the lane excursions in the experiment (Hosking et al., 2011). Notably, the revealing strengths of the study area in the design. Understanding the effects of text messaging on driver performance demands a study design that places the driver in an exact driving scenario while monitoring the driving parameters. Measuring performance for inexperienced drivers also required an understanding of their driving behaviors, hence the requirements that participants first fill a questionnaire. The merit of the study design to measure cognitive psychological concepts is fair considering the focus on driver attention and visual concentration. Distraction affect these cognitive function hence the design is capable of measuring the extent of these adverse affects.One weakness of the study is that it was performed in a driving simulator hence the high likelihood that participants would acts while knowing that there is no risk involved as compared to a real-world driving scenario. The data collected under such a case would not be reflective of the real situation on the road. The training acquitted the participants to the simulator; hence participants were likely to predict the occurrence of hazards the moment the environment become complex. Despite the weaknesses, the results and analysis provide invaluable knowledge on how distractions affective cognitive psychological functions when undertaking mentally demanding activities.
Proposed Experiment
The previous article explores the risks caused by text messaging for young and inexperienced drivers. Notably, the researchers take a generalized approach in researching the driving parameters, which include visual scanning, car following, time headway, and lane changes (Hosking et al., 2011). One crucial behavior while driving is car-following, which significantly determines the driver's risk and the ability to respond to different road situations. Saifuzzaman et al. (2015) described car-following as the driver’s behavior to longitudinally follow the leading vehicle on the road. This proposed experiment aims to determine the association between mobile phone use and car-following behavior.
Method
This experiment will involve a 10-mile route with sections of heavy traffic, complex road networks, and a long stretch of few lanes. A single lead driver will drive through the route as the participant follows. High precision GPS devices will be placed in each of the cars and transmit real-time data at the observation center. Speed will also vary from 40 km/h to 100 km/h with the lead driver altering the speed at intervals. Participants will drive under baseline conditions on the first trip. The baseline condition will not have any phone conversations, the hands-free experience, and conversations where the participants will hold the phone. They will then be subjected to phone distraction on the second trip to observe their car-following behavior. A total of 15 drivers will take part in the experiment. Unlike in the previous study where participants were trained on the simulation experience, this experiment will provide a first-time experience of the drivers to avoid erroneous results that may be obtained due to predictability. A total of three programmed conversations for the distance will be utilized, each lasting one minute. A cognitive form of conversation is necessary to ensure that the participant processes information while driving. The independent variables in this case are the speed of the lead driver, road conditions and complexity and the driving duration. The dependent variables are the car-following distance, reaction times and adherence to traffic rules. Under the baseline conditions, the experiment seeks to understand how a low cognitive load affects decision-making for the drivers. On the second trip the driver has a higher cognitive load due to the distraction thus their behavior is measured under these new conditions.
The experiment will study the effects of both handheld and hands-free phone use while driving. While car-following behavior is a critical determinant of the level of road safety risk for the driver, it is influenced a variety of factors such as driving speed, the difference in speed between two vehicles, acceleration, and spacing between the vehicles. It is, therefore, necessary to create a comparison between the distracted and the undistracted driver. As such, participants will first drive under undistracted conditions before being subjected to distraction on the second trip. Obtaining a driving history of the participants will also be necessary for determining their eligibility for the experiment. Participants will fill a questionnaire about their driving history and phone use over the past 12 months. Participants who report driving for over 10 miles a day with either moderate or frequent phone use during the driving exercise will be selected. Only drivers between the ages of 18 and 30 with an active driving license will be eligible to take part in the study. Preferably 15 participants evenly distributed from both genders. The criteria for exclusion will be individuals who are affected by motion sickness or are pregnant.
Results
The expected results for the experiment are that a significant number of drivers will have a deteriorated car-following performance when using their phones. The results will document the determining parameters of driving speed, the difference in speed between two vehicles, acceleration, and spacing between the vehicles. Conversing driving is expected to record lower speeds than their baseline counterparts. As a result of the distraction, car spacing will be higher while there are no expected significant differences in speed difference for the three situations. Speed fluctuation is, however, expected to be higher for distracted drivers (Saifuzzaman et al., 2015). The measured factors highlight the competition for mental resources for the distracted young drivers. Handheld devices utilize both the cognitive and physical abilities of the driver hence are likely to cause a greater poorer car-following behavior as compared to hands-free use (Jiang et al., 2014). Additionally, slow reactions due to the phone distraction cause speed fluctuation and possible poor judgment by the driver.
Interpretation
Previous experiments using a driving simulator had shown that reaction time increased when drivers were exposed to phone conversations (Hosking et al., 2011). Studies have also shown that drivers reduce speed during a phone conversation to compensate for the risk caused by phone distraction. Speed fluctuations are also expected when using phones while driving, indicating a reduced level of control over the vehicle by the driver. Researchers also observed that drivers using phones had a slower breaking reaction but tend to maintain lower speed and wider spacing than their free counterparts. These findings support the widely accepted understanding that phone distractions significantly increase the road safety risk for drivers. There is, however, need for researching the effect of these distractions on specific driving parameters such as car following. The cognitive process under investigation under the new experiment will be the amount of cognition resources utilized while driving and role of distraction in overloading mental processes. It is expected that distractions such as use of cell phones creates a strain on cognition processes while driving hence increasing the risk of accidents. This experiment adds to the cognitive psychological concepts investigated in the previous experiment by varying the cognitive load for the participants. The drivers pass through areas of varying distractions which demand varying degree of mental resources. The drivers are in a real-world scenario where the risks are actual unlike in the simulation experiment.
Possible limitations of the experiment relate participants’ prior knowledge of the oncoming distractions hence mental preparation to react to them. Another limitation of the experiment is the reliance on participants to provide accurate driving history data. Some of the data may be inaccurate resulting in the participation of individuals who do not fit the criteria selected for the experiment. There is also the possibility of the kind and duration of phone conversation varying in the real world as compared to the study. The experiment, however, when conducted, will provide invaluable knowledge on how utilization of cognition resources affects driver’s decision-making and impacts on road safety risks.
References
Hosking, S., Young, K., & Regan, M. (2009). The effects of text messaging on young drivers. Human Factors: The Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society , 51 (4), 582-592.
Jiang, R., Hu, M. B., Zhang, H. M., Gao, Z. Y., Jia, B., Wu, Q. S., & Yang, M. (2014). Traffic experiment reveals the nature of car-following. PloS one , 9 (4), e94351.
Saifuzzaman, M., Haque, M. M., Zheng, Z., & Washington, S. (2015). Impact of mobile phone use on car-following behaviour of young drivers. Accident Analysis & Prevention , 82 , 10-19.
