Going beyond already too much

This writer has been getting steadily more uneasy about the proliferation of distractions in and around the dashboard and controls of our cars, writes Brian Byrne.

Well, folks, it's not going to get better. Now, Toyota and Panasonic are showcasing a prototype system by which you'll not just be managing your car from the driver's seat, but also your home.

The idea is that if you've forgotten to turn on the washing machine, or not turned off the cooker or the heating, you can fix things up remotely by buttons (more buttons) on your steering wheel or centre screen.

It's a cloud-based telematics service that the companies claim 'will make life easier and less stressful' by letting people keep tabs on and operate their home appliances from the wheel of their car.

Look, I think already it's gone beyond 'whoa' time. Now we need to emergency crash this wholesale idiocy into a safety barrier before it all starts crashing into other cars and people.

All for the sake of having a bit more technology in your offering than the competitor has. Look, it's really simple. When you get behind the wheel of a car, your job is to drive that car, safely and with full attention.

Wondering about which channel to set the TV to record on, from the middle of moving traffic, is not concentrating on the car, the road, and all the other things that are part of getting your journey done safely.

Call me a crank, if you like. But, crankily or not, it just isn't right.

Volvo focusing on 'attentive driving'

#driverdistraction. Volvo has developed a 'driver feedback system' that will trigger a warning whenever a driver's eyes are more than 2.4 seconds off the road, or when glances away from the road are happening too often, writes Brian Byrne.

The system has been fully researched, but is not yet on the market, the company's Dr Claudia Wege told yesterday's Driver Distraction road safety conference in Dublin.

"We have found that when that alert system is used, it increases by 37 percent the time that eyes are kept on the road," she told the audience at the conference, which was organised in Dublin Castle by the Road Safety Authority.

Dr Wege said the 'reality' is that truck drivers are always online, and do have to take messages relating to their work as they travel. Therefore Volvo's focus was now on promoting 'Attentive Driving' in addition to trying to better understand driver distraction issues.

She gave the DOIT safety systems developed for factories as an example of how to improve safety for drivers, noting that the implementation of these systems had reduced by 70 percent the accident rates in factories.

DOIT is an acronym for Define behaviour, Observe behaviour, Intervene to improve behaviour, and Test effectiveness of the interventions.

To this, Volvo has added its own acronym, BEST, which stands for Behavioural checkups, Education of drivers, Safety benefit analysis, and Training. "We have translated the DOIT Feedback system to the automotive domain, to include driver feedback comparisons over different periods, and regular 'back office' discussions on performance."

As part of this process, Volvo has developed an app to monitor and accumulate information on a driver's safety performance. Dr Wege added that while it was important that the automotive industry develops systems for improving attentive driving, the phone makers have a duty to do the same.

She impressed on the audience that education of drivers towards attentive driving was really important. "But driver education in the area of distraction is hugely underdeveloped,

US anti-text/drive cuts accidents by 32,000

#driverdistraction. A movement aimed at young drivers in the US to stop them texting while driving has had a nationwide positive impact on a relatively small budget, writes Brian Byrne.

'Texting & Driving — It Can Wait' is the slogan of the programme initiated by the US's biggest telecoms carrier, AT&T. It was the result of what the company saw as a 'national epidemic' of texting while driving, and which was clearly resulting in a very large number of serious accidents.

"Our research showed that more than four in ten teen drivers texted while driving," the company's Michelle Kucklemann told today's RSA Road Safety Conference on the theme of Driver Distraction, held in Dublin Castle. "We also found that 77 percent of them had watched their parents doing the same thing."

The programme was initiated in 2011 with a series of simple but graphic public service TV advertisements showing the human results of crashes by teen drivers because they were distracted by texts.

A documentary was also produced and shared on social media, again showing the serious, sometimes terminal, results of texting while driving.

"In the campaign we asked them to look at their last text and ask themselves if they thought that text was worth losing their lives, or causing catastrophic consequences to others," Michelle Kucklemann said. "We weren't lecturing to them, just giving them the opportunity to learn that the ball was in their court. It was a public service campaign on the consequences of an insignificant text."

Over the next two years, the campaign was extended by providing a social media platform where people could tell their own stories on the issue. A 'pledge' system was set up where drivers could make a public pledge not to use their phones while driving, or share a car with other drivers who did.

With a limited budget, AT&T's people leveraged its own staff, and other companies within its supply chain, to promote the programme. After an approach from one competitor to join in, the telecom asked it other competitors and now the four biggest telecoms in the US are promoting the campaign.

Now, some four million people have taken the pledge, and research suggests that the campaign has cut accidents in the US by nearly 8 percent, around 32,000 incidents.

Michelle Kucklemann said that the campaign has also flowed to the parents of the teen drivers targeted, further spreading the message.

And in one response to it, an AT&T staff member has come up with a smartphone app that automatically blocks texts coming in while it senses that it is in a moving vehicle.

More mobile phone use in city driving

#driverdistraction. Twice as many drivers in Dublin use their mobile phones while driving, compared to country drivers, according to observations carried out by the Road Safety Authority in 2012, writes Brian Byrne.

That was revealed in a presentation at today's Road Safety Conference on Driver Distraction today, by Velma Burns, Research Manager at the RSA.

In a new survey also revealed today, half of interviewees admitted to using their phone in some way while driving, while the ratio rose to three in four for males aged between 17-34.

The research shows that the main high level distractions today are mobile phones, children, and eating and drinking. Low level ones identified were distracting passengers, using the radio, and personal grooming.

Ms Burns reported that while the drivers who allowed themselves to be distracted were aware of the dangers, they found ways of justifying the behaviour. This seems to reflect today's busy lifestyle, with drivers feeling 'pressured' to let themselves be distracted.

Excuses included 'emergency', which might be as simple as being asked to buy a carton of milk on the way home. Others were 'addiction' to the phone, it's 'a work thing' and 'keeping the family schedule moving'.

A notion that people think 'I'm an experienced driver, so I can multitask. But other drivers shouldn't do it' was also found.

Texting while driving is 'most dangerous thing'

#driverdistraction Drivers who text are 23 times more in danger of crashing, a Driver Distraction road safety conference in Dublin heard today, writes Brian Byrne.

Professor John D Lee from the University of Wisconsin outlined various definitions of distraction, dividing them into visual, manual and cognitive — or not keeping eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, and mind on driving.

He explained various studies which provided actual metrics about different distraction situations. Among them, having a conversation on the phone usually makes drivers concentrate on the centre of the road ahead and they can miss potential dangers on the edges of their area.

Professor Lee provided from his own experience the dangers posed by scrolling through menus on screens, such as choosing music tracks, which can result in eyes being off the road for relatively long times. He noted research which showed that after 15 seconds of this scrolling, the periods between glancing back at the road tended to get longer.

He spoke of a number of new technologies in cars, including the shift from buttons to touchscreens, which can result in greater distraction.

Through his presentation, Professor Lee emphasised that it is pretty well impossible to do two things at once without one of them suffering.

Bird says phone use in cars is 'bonkers'

#driverdistraction After more than a month with the Inuit in the Arctic, without being in contact with cars, broadcaster Charlie Bird told the Driver Distraction RSA Conference this morning that it was 'scarifying' to see how many drivers were using their phone when he came back to Ireland, writes Brian Byrne.

He told the Conference that it was 'absolutely bonkers', especially seeing how many of them were motorists with child seats in the back.

"It's stupid and silly, and I know we have all been guilty of it. But I do thing that we all have to stand up and change the culture."

The Conference in Dublin Castle continues this morning.

Dublin conference on Driver Distraction

#driverdistraction The background to the Driver Distraction International Road Safety Conference in Dublin today is that up to 30 percent of all road collisions are thought to involve distraction of drivers, writes Brian Byrne.

The distractions can range from eating and drinking to reaching for objects to dealing with children. But most emphasis today centres on the new digital distractions such as mobile phones, texting, and other technology related issues.

The conference is organised by the Road Safety Authority, and has brought to Dublin Castle today a number of academic and frontline experts to discuss the matter.

Irish Car+Travel is here at the conference and we'll report through the proceedings.