Driver Distraction

Over the past two decades, cellular phones have gone from clunky novelties to ubiquitous must-haves. Wireless subscriptions in the United States have grown from about 28 million in 1995 to about 270 million in early 2009 – a whopping 960 percent increase. The public has become accustomed to using cell phones everywhere – at home, on the street, in restaurants, at the office, while shopping, and – of most interest to Ford's safety researchers – while driving. Indeed, studies by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicate that approximately 10 percent of drivers are using their cell phones at any given time.

The ubiquity of cell phones – coupled with the more recent proliferation of portable music players in vehicles – has heightened concerns about driver distraction. We at Ford agree that this is an important safety issue, and we have taken steps to address it. We also believe that continued research is needed to better understand the complex interactions involved in this issue, and we are participating in that research.

Recently, the National Safety Council (NSC) called for a total ban on the use of cell phones, both hand-held and hands-free, while driving. The NSC stated that cell phone use while driving is "...a very high-risk behavior with significant impact on crashes...." And indeed, some studies have concluded that there's no difference in driver behavior whether using hand-held or hands-free phones. In many of those laboratory studies, participants in simulated driving situations were observed while being asked to engage in in-depth conversations on challenging or emotional subjects, such as the latest political scandal or a near-death experience. Such intense and lengthy discussions can indeed be distracting.

Naturalistic driving studies – in which study participants' driving performance, "eye glance behavior," driving environment and in-vehicle activities are observed and recorded over weeks or months in real-world situations – have revealed different results. For example, naturalistic studies completed by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute are beginning to reveal that, when immersed in real traffic conditions, drivers using cell phones by and large exhibit prudent driving behavior.

In addition, recent results from the landmark Virginia Tech 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study found that visual distraction, not cognitive distraction, is the main safety concern in the real world. This large-scale study reported that almost 80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of all near-crashes involved the driver looking away from the forward roadway just prior to the onset of the incident. In 2008, the study's authors summarized their findings in this way: "...it is a rare case that a crash occurs while the driver's eyes are on the forward roadway, regardless of any other 'cognitive demand' that they might be engaged in."

Beyond this, there exists a considerable body of published research that clearly indicates the superiority of hands-free voice interfaces as compared to hand-held or visual–manual interfaces for the same tasks of command or data entry. These studies show advantages in driver performance, eye glance behavior toward the roadway, and object and event detection when the driver can keep eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

It is also interesting to note that, despite the significant increase in cell phone use in recent years, crash rates have fallen over the same time period (specifically, in both the categories of "fatal crashes" and "police-reported crashes"). Also, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has published studies indicating that hand-held phone bans in New York, Washington, DC, and Finland led to an initial decline in the banned behavior followed by a return to pre-ban levels of hand-held phone use within roughly one year.

For several years now, Ford has been focused on this issue of driver distraction and taken steps to enhance driving safety for those who use cell phones and other telematics devices while driving. Through its work with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, for example, Ford helped lead the development of an industry-wide Driver Distraction Voluntary Agreement, and Ford designs its telematics systems to meet that agreement.

In addition, Ford designed and introduced SYNC®, our voice-activated in-car connectivity system, which has been shown to significantly enhance the ability of drivers to attend to the driving task while using cell phones and music players. Recently completed simulator research at Ford has shown that SYNC substantially reduces drivers' eyes-off-road time and improves lane-keeping, speed maintenance, and object and event detection response times, when compared to hand-held devices for the same tasks. (See the above video for an example. It shows how long it takes a driver to find a song on an MP3 player manually vs. using SYNC's voice-activated system.) This study evaluated driver performance, not driver behavior in the real world. However, these performance effects are consistent with the 100-Car study results and strongly suggest that SYNC will improve highway safety overall.

Ford recognizes that drivers will in fact use cell phones and music players while driving, and that evolving technologies like text messaging are growing increasingly popular. Text messaging is a particular concern, as it requires significant time looking away from the roadway to operate. Ford's SYNC system addresses this concern as well: when a text message arrives, it does not display that message but instead reads it aloud through text-to-speech technology, and then provides a list of canned replies for the driver to select rather than key-in or compose manually.

We believe that further education is needed to help drivers understand the importance of focusing on the driving task and keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Ford plans to continue to work with the government and other safety-related groups to discuss measures that can effectively reduce driver distraction and improve driving safety. We also plan to participate in continued research that can further our understanding of safe driving and help spread the message of safe driving.