Case Study: 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 by 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.

The ubiquity of cell phones – coupled with the 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.

Ford Focus with SYNC®, Ford's fully integrated, voice-activated in-car communications and entertainment system

In 2009 and again in 2010, the National Safety Council (NSC) called for a total ban on the use of cell phones, both handheld 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 handheld 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 reveal that, when immersed in real traffic conditions, drivers using cell phones by and large exhibit prudent driving behavior.

In addition, the landmark 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) found 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."

In 2009, the VTTI published a new naturalistic driving study based on commercial vehicle operator experience. This study suggested that there is a 23-fold increase in risk when commercial operators send text messages while driving and that some behaviors like checking gauges and talking on the cell phone can have protective benefits. After this study was published, legislative and executive action to ban texting while driving increased dramatically, and the Secretary of Transportation convened a two-day Distracted Driving Summit to open a dialogue between the various stakeholders. Ford took part by sending representatives to attend the Summit as well as leading the development of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers' presentation for the Advanced Technologies Panel.

Beyond the VTTI and University of Michigan studies, there exists a considerable body of published research that indicates the superiority of hands-free voice interfaces as compared to handheld 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"). (See graph below.) Also, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has published studies indicating that handheld 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 handheld phone use within roughly one year.

More recently, the IIHS evaluated insurance data to see if there were demonstrable benefits to handheld bans. The IIHS had previously claimed that driving while using a cell phone causes a four-fold increase in risk, thus it was expected that insurance data would show a drop in claims after the enactment of handheld bans. However, the data showed no observable drop in claims as expected, and the IIHS is now re-evaluating its position on distracted driving and cell phone use risks.

For several years now, Ford has been focused on the issue of driver distraction and has 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 was the first automotive manufacturer to support the Schumer Bill, the first bill in Congress to propose a ban on handheld texting while driving. Ford also clarified its employee policies to explicitly ban the practice. And, Ford Driving Skills for Life, Ford's driver education program, includes modules on the importance of avoiding distracted driving.

In addition, Ford designed and introduced SYNC®, our voice-activated in-car connectivity system, which has been shown to enhance the ability of drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel 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 handheld 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 VTTI Study, and strongly suggest that SYNC will reduce driver distraction and thus improve driving safety in situations where a hand-held device would otherwise be used. In addition, these findings were recently confirmed by independent, on-road testing performed by the VTTI and published at the most recent SAE Congress.

Ford recognizes the fact that drivers will 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. SYNC also locks out certain features (such as adding or editing a phone book contact) while driving.

The next generation of SYNC will allow for more conversational commands, and will allow customers to use voice commands to control smart-phone applications such as OpenBeak (an app for posting messages to Twitter), Pandora (for music streaming) and Stitcher (for podcast streaming). Pandora and Stitcher report that more than 40 percent of their users use this feature in their vehicle.

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.