Slide show made and presented by: Gina Gillespie “Distracted Driving and Risk of Road Crashes among Novice and Experienced Drivers” Article and experiment done by: Sheila G. Klauer, Ph. D., Feng Guo, Ph.D., Bruce G. Simons- Morton, Ed. D., M.P.H., Marie Claude Ouimet. Ph. D., and Thomas A. Dingus, Ph.D Slide show made and presented by: Gina Gillespie

Distracted Driving Distracted driving is defined as : the diversions of attention away from activities critical for safe driving toward a competing activity. There is an estimated 9% of all people who drive during the day do so while using their cell phones to call, text, or read a message they had received.

Those who conducted this study The Naturalistic Teenage Driving Study (NTDS) provides the data for newly licensed drivers. To be considered a newly licensed driver(novice) the average age of the drivers in the study was 16.4 years old, and had their license for three weeks or less. The 100- Car study provides the data for the experienced drivers. To be considered an experienced driver between the ages of 18 and 72 with a mean age of 36.2 years old, and had been driving for an average of 20 years. novice: newly licensed driver

Research Simulation and test-track research on distraction among experienced drivers indicates that cell phone use delays reaction to potential hazards. The NTDS reported that among newly licensed drivers, the rates of crashes or near crashes were 3.9 times as high as the corresponding rates among their parents when they drove the same vehicles, and at approx. the same speeds.

Equipment involved and supplied Instruments with the same data- acquisition systems were installed in vehicles in both studies. The systems included: 4 cameras (forward view, rearview, view of driver’s face, view over right shoulder), and a suit of vehicle sensors (a multi-axis accelerometer), forward radar, global positioning system(GPS), and a machine- vision tracker. The study participants were videoed and their driving- performance was recorded continuously throughout the entire study. Multi-axis accelerometer: measures proper acceleration and stops if senses a crash

Data from study In the study those who performed the study refer to “crashes and near-crash,” and at a previous part of the study they define: crashes :any physical contact between the vehicle and another object for which the driver was at fault or partially at fault, near- crashes as : any circumstance requiring a last- moment physical maneuver that challenged the physical limitations of the vehicle to avoid a crash for what the driver was at fault or partially at fault (none of the crashes caused death or serious injury)

Data from study In the event where the driver was not at fault, was not counted towards the study. In the event where the driver became drowsy or was suspected to be under the influence or drugs or alcohol, was also excluded from the study. The analyses included 31 crashes and 136 near- crashes among novice drivers, and 42 crashes and 476 near-crashes among experienced drivers. Two analysts viewed the video footage before each crash or near-crash and identified that each driver was performing a secondary task.

Secondary Tasks http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa120414 2#t=article

Secondary Tasks Texting was only considered a secondary task in the NTDS, and not in the 100- Car Study because it was performed before texting was a widely used activity, Any secondary tasks were considered only if they occurred 5 seconds before, or 1 second after the onset of a crash or near- crash. Viewing continued for at least 1 second after the onset of the crash or near- crash to capture the behaviors of the driver to see if he/she was aware of the onset of the crash.

Results 9.9% of the studied novice drivers performed secondary tasks while driving. 10.9% of the studied experienced drivers performed secondary tasks while driving. Among novice drivers, the following tasks were associated with an increased risk of a crash or near- crash: dialing or reaching for a cell phone, texting, reaching for an object other than a cell phone, looking at a roadside object, or eating Among experienced drivers: dialing a cell phone (the study involving experienced drivers was done before texting was a “trend”

Further conclusions Talking on a cell phone was not an increased risk to the novice drivers, but dialing on a cell phone was an increased risk. Dialing was an increased risk for both novice drivers and experienced drivers. In both studies, the majority of the events recorded were near- crashes, rather than actual crashes. The findings indicate that secondary tasks requiring drivers to look away from the road ahead, particularly among novice drivers.

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