Deanna Singhal & David Wiesenthal York University

1. An Assessment of the Relationship Between Cellular Telephone Use While Driving and Motor Vehicle Accidents Deanna Singhal & David Wiesenthal York University

2. TIRF Road Safety Monitor Study (2002)(Beirness, Simpson, & Pak) • 40% of Canadians believe driver distraction to be a serious problem. • 2/3 of Canadians describe cell phone use as a “serious” or “extremely” serious problem. • 4.3 million drivers are estimated to use cell phones while driving over a 7-day period.

3. Cell phone users are high risk drivers: • Male • Younger • Have a job requiring driving • Higher education • Urban • Drink & drive • Received a traffic ticket • Driver use of cell phones most common in Prairies (26%) and Ontario (23%). • Driver use of cell phones least common in Atlantic region (11%).

4. Perceived Seriousness of Traffic Safety Issues (TIRF, 2002) Drinking Driving Impaired by Illegal Drugs Red Light Running Children not in Safety Seats Aggressive Drivers Drivers Using Cell Phones Speeding Sleepy Drivers Poorly Maintained Vehicles Impaired by Medication Vehicle Defects Distracted Drivers

5. Cell Phone Use in Toronto(Redelmeier & Tibshirani, 1997) • Case-crossover design where each driver was own control. • 699 drivers with cell phones who had “property damage only” crashes. • Cell phone billing records indicated that 170 drivers had used cell phone during a 10 minute period prior to mishap. • Compared to control period (days prior to crash), risk of crash was 4.3 times higher when a cell phone was used.

6. Higher risk for calls initiated 5 minutes prior to crash compared with calls made at least 15 minutes before crash (4.8 vs. 1.3). Problems: • No information on whether cell phone using drivers were at fault. • Emotional reactions following call could have been responsible for accident. • No information on whether cell phone use could reduce accidents by reducing stress, preventing speeding, etc.

7. Problems • We don’t know how many drivers use cell phones without experiencing collisions. • Data is not adjusted to account for amount driven, such that cell phone users may be drivers who tend to spend more time in their vehicles.

8. Cell Phone Involvement in Oklahoma Crashes(Volanti, 1998) Case-control design where drivers killed in crashes were compared with crash survivors (controls). • Both the presence and use of cell phone were seen to increase probability of a fatality. • Cell phone use increased risk of a fatality 9 times and double for presence of a phone.

9. Problems: • No information on whether it was a hand held or hands-free phone. • No information on other possible distractions.

10. Cell Phone Use and Accidents in North Carolina(Reinfurt, Huang, Feaganes, & Hunter, 2001) • NC State Highway Patrol used new recording form in accident investigations involving cell phones. • Over a 3 month period, 11 crashes out of 6,686 (0.16%) involved a cell phone (1 in every 600 crashes). Problem: • Drivers involved in accidents may be reluctant to report cell phone operation prior to accident.

11. Table 1: Driver Distractions Based on Weighted Crashworthiness Data System 1995-1999(Stutts, Reinfurt, Staplin, & Rodgman, 2001) Driver Distraction Overall % Outside person, object, event 29.4 Adjusting radio/cassette/CD 11.4 Other occupant 10.9 Moving object in vehicle 4.3 Other device/object 2.9 Vehicle climate controls 2.8 Eating, drinking 1.7 Using/dialing cell phone 1.5 Smoke related 0.9 Other distraction 25.6 Unknown distraction 8.6

12. Table 2: Distraction and Accidents in Virginia 2002(Glaze & Ellis, 2003) 2,919 incidents of driver distraction were categorized: Distraction Overall % Driver fatigue, sleep 17.0 Looking at other roadside incident, traffic 13.1 Looking at scenery, landmarks 9.8 Passenger, children 8.7 Adjusting radio, changing tape/CD 6.5 Daydreaming 4.3 Eating, drinking 4.2 Cell phone (ringing, dialing, talking) 3.9 Reaching for something 3.0 Smoking 2.1

13. Changes in Accident and Cellular Telephone Possession Rate From 1990 - 2000

14. Dual-Tasking Simulator Research(Strayer & Johnson, 2001) • Performance in a driving simulator was NOT affected by listening to radio broadcasts or books-on-tape. • No disruption during continuous shadowing task (repeating spoken word). • Significant decrement occurred with more involved word generating task, performance decreased as driving task’s difficulty increased. • Conversation doubled the likelihood of failing to detect simulated traffic signals and slowed reactions to detected signals.

15. Fatigue and Driving Research(Arnedt, Wilde, Munt, & MacLean, 2001) • Comparison of fatigue effects on driving with effects of alcohol on driving. • In a repeated measures design, subjects drank alcohol (0.0%, 0.05%, or 0.08% BAC) at different time of day to vary wakefulness. • Subjects receiving 0.0%, 0.05%, and 0.08% BAC were equivalent to those awake for 16, 18.5 and 21 hours respectively.

16. Fatigue and Driving Research(Arnedt, Wilde, Munt, & MacLean, 2001) • Driving decrements produced by fatigue were same as those for alcohol (increase in lane deviations and speed variability). • The number of off-road occurrences were greater for the alcohol conditions.

17. Current Research Problem: • Previous research has not controlled for placement of attention, therefore, it is difficult to correctly interpret deficits in behaviour. Loading task paradigm: • Focus attention on one task while performing two • Allows for proper interpretation of behavioural measures and inference of workload (amount of resources required to complete a task).

18. Secondary task Reserve or spare capacity High Secondary Task Secondary Task Maximum capacity Difference cannot be directly measured Operator Capacity Expenditure Difficult Primary Task Easy Primary Task Low Different Primary Tasks

19. Current Research con’t Problem: • Fatigue can interact with cognitive demands of driving and cell phone use Time of Day: • Interaction model testing cell phone use while driving during different times of day

20. Conclusions • Not all cell phone calls are the same. • They can differ in cognitive load and that may interact with time of day and the current driving situation. • Simply eliminating hand-held source of distraction is not sufficient