Understanding cognition — Preventions & Countermeasures for Distracted Driving
How can multiple disciplines be integrated to study the effects of human cognition on roads? Dr. Oscar Oviedo answers such questions in his webinar: “Preventions & Countermeasures for Distracted Driving” on the occasion of 32nd National Road Safety Month.
The United States Department of Transportation terms ‘Distracted Driving’ as one of the most dangerous driver behaviors and an epidemic that has increased with the proliferation of mobile phones. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), India currently has 1 billion mobile phone subscribers, with one out of two respondents having used a phone while driving. With such widespread impact, it is essential &, at the same time, intriguing how stakeholders can contribute to modify individual’s choices & habits for safer roads for all!
About the Speaker: Dr Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios is a Senior lecturer and Researcher at Queensland University of technology (QUT) with expertise in human factors engineering, injury prevention, intelligent transport systems, and transportation safety & security. In 2019, he received the Australasian College of Road Safety’s Inaugural Young Leaders Oration Award in recognition of his inspiring work and growing reputation in ‘Distracted Driving’ research.
What is CARRS-Q (his organization) to give a bit of context?
Located in Queenstown Institute of Technology, they are a research center but with a mission, a vision that is ‘To create a safer world in which injury-related harm is uncommon & unacceptable.’
Workforce: 25 Academic Researchers, 29 research fellows/officers, 38 PhD & Masters students & 11 professional staff.
The organization is multicultural, having people from all around the world working to develop road safety interventions and more knowledge that can help in reducing road trauma. Having achieved an international reputation, it ranks among the Top 50 universities in the Shanghai Ranking of transportation, top 5 in terms of preventing accidents & highway accidents.
Coming to the title of the webinar; according to the International Organization for Standardization- “Driver Distraction is the diversion of attention away from activities critical for safe driving towards a competing activity”; where a competing activity might be anything from looking at a roadside advertising device, talking to a passenger, changing the radio & songs, eating or the most common of all: using the phone.
There have been multiple studies analyzing the risk associated with distracted driving. For instance, in the U.S., about 68% of crashes had an observable distraction. The number is huge, probably due to the cognitive aspect of distraction, i.e., one can be distracted not by an external entity, but just because of not thinking on driving (having a daydream or imagining what you’re going to do next or some sort of planning of the future :p)
As all may agree, a crash is a very messy happening, and not all of the data is possible to capture; despite that, there have been studies that indicate the following:
· Dingus et al. (2016) found that observable distractions were associated with 68.3% of all crashes in a U.S. Naturalistic Driving Study.
· The Australian National Crash In-depth Study (ANCIS) revealed that 15.9% of crashes were distraction-related (Beanland et al., 2013).
· A U.S. Study of police crash reports reported that mobile phone distraction is estimated to have resulted in 18% of fatal crashes & 5% of injury crashes (Overton et al., 2014).
Even if 10% of the crashes out of this 68% are preventable, it is worth the amount of effort being put into it!
Mobile phone usages, despite being the riskiest things of all & illegal behavior (can cause fines), are extremely popular.
Amidst the multiple uses of phones, it is time to realize many of them can be done by the driver whilst controlling the vehicle. A study conducted by Mr. Oscar himself: (to understand the most common type of activities drivers may be engaged in while using phones & their frequencies):
Such sort of distractions from the road tend to influence the driving decisions as well; some of the examples being an increasing distance from the front vehicle, reducing the speed, and impairing the ability to identify risks which contributes the harsh incidents on roads.
Having understood the associated risk, it is time to look at the prevention.
To understand what doesn’t work:
· Traditionally, Victim blaming against the drivers has been carried out for the past decade & we have successfully been unsuccessful at it!
· There’s a need to understand that drivers will continue to get distracted, and there are multiple interventions from all ends that lie beyond our control at all times.
Having listed the above, situations require us to be more creative & open-minded with our solutions. In times when people have started to develop maladaptive relationships with their device, it brings in the role of psychologists, people specializing in mental health to help break that habit/addiction; which makes it important for us to work in multidisciplinary teams & engineers alone cannot resolve these complex problems, and it is even more complex how these tend to involve humans with them.
To understand what works:
- Road Safety approaches that consider the broader transport & stakeholders (beyond education & legislation); talking about the responsibility of the industry, driver education, people who sell the cars, and in case of mobile phones, those who manufacture them.
Example: The Queensland Government in Australia has developed a policy that involves all members of the system. Say, the telecommunication industry! During the distraction, it is not only about the car but also about the model from the device. Why can’t the telecommunication industry provide an alternative to this as social responsibility? Or about the insurance industry, what type of stimuli or benefits are being provided to the drivers who do not use their phone while driving! Also, talking about the employees, for instance, are they using phones while driving because it’s a part of their work? Or if there’s a better way to carry out the same.
2. Recognize variability in human performance & create safety margins to protect road users from the inevitability of such variability, not punishing the drivers recognizing their tendency to error; changing our perspective & developing systems that can protect them & acknowledge their limitations.
Example: The process from the variability of drivers to the crash encapsulates the steps, each of which can be accompanied by interventions as follows:
As a part of the countermeasures for controlling distracted driving, Hierarchy of Control comes as an effective tool:
(i) Elimination: Involves real automation, the type of car that doesn’t have a steering wheel, the system will be doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and thus, distraction won’t be an issue! Although theoretically available, we don’t have it commercially available, and there is a long time until we see that happening!
(ii) Substitution: For instance, an app drive mode simplifies the interface causing people to look less into their phones and just allow them to use voice interactions which don’t seem to be that risky.
(iii) Engineering Controls: Modifying physical safety features from the car, the road system, the traffic network, or the environment to draw attention.
E.g., The road signs need to be in good shape & maintenance to reduce the driver's distraction. Another way to create engineering controls can be other technology or Advanced Driver-Assistance System (ADAS) + Semi-Autonomous Navigation. However, upon research by Mr. Oscar, he found them also very distracting. Things like the blind spot monitor system that keeps beeping all the time & drivers get cognitively exhausted & produce even more errors. The industry has also been very irresponsible in the sense that there has been a lack of externalization.
There have been other sorts of interventions, i.e., applications to prevent distracted driving: ‘Do Not Disturb While Driving.’ The results when being tested on a sample of drivers seemed to be positive:
These apps being free & convenient to use, the key message being using them to have them while driving to make our roads & systems safer for all.
(iv) Administrative Controls: Related to education, like in Cars. It may be the Government's duty sometimes, but it is important for all to understand the risk, interact with materials & learn about the facts. Another aspect to it is the Police Enforcement; where Police are constantly looking for those drivers who are not getting the message & trying to make them realize the consequences for their behavior.
The ideas might not sound convincing; however, when drivers were inquired about the impact of such measures on their choices, the results were astonishing, where 88% & 79% of them agreed that such laws would prevent them from texting/browsing & talking, respectively during driving.
(v) Personal Protection: A situation that is totally uncalled for, where the crash/damage has already begun & the role of personal protection comes to play. Some of them may be; Rainbow Seat Belts (proven to reduce the severity of the injuries), Systems that test the Car's safety (to make the safest choice while buying).
If we focus only on blaming drivers, we aren’t going to achieve the change we need to. It requires efforts from all stakeholders in unison. We still need to understand to optimize control measures, particularly in the high end that some have not been developed, so of course the research is needed. Still, also, we need to start thinking about how to improve & develop more technological interventions because the evidence is minimal.
This article was written by Kavya Saxena under the R-Safety Initiative on the occasion of 32nd National Road Safety Month, NSS IIT Roorkee.
