Commentary
As much as they deny it, auto makers keep adding to the problem of driver distraction.
Every new electronic gizmo they stick on the dashboard is just one more thing to pry a driver’s attention away from the road. I should know. I love playing with those things!
Auto makers claim they’re actually improving the situation by incorporating voice-activation to their systems or by adding better, more intuitive controls and interfaces. Their rallying cry is “hands-free” operation. But all the safety research, which has been around for years by the way, shows hands-free operation does not solve the problem of driver distraction.
Don’t they ever read that stuff?
The best example involves mobile phones in cars. The reason it’s perfectly safe to hold a conversation with someone who is in the car with you is they can see what’s happening as you drive. So if you have to jump on the brakes hard, or if there’s a sudden situation that demands your driving attention, your passenger will clam up for a moment and then resume the conversation after it’s safe to do so.
But people on the other end of your cell phone have no idea they ought to pause while you make an emergency lane-change maneuver. They’ll keep on yakking away, and for some strange reason, we human beings will try to keep up with the conversation even as we yank on the wheel to avoid a horrific smash up.
It’s the same weird human trait that will have us lunge to answer a phone the moment it starts ringing, even if we’re hemmed in by a pack of fast moving cars. The ringing phone seems to become a higher priority than the driving chore at hand. Why is that?
Some safety researchers have argued for years that mobile phones in cars need to provide some sort of audio feedback to let callers know when they need to stop talking. For example, a clicking noise to let them know you have your turn signal on. Or some sort of braking or steering noise to let them know they ought to pause because some situation demands you keep your mind on the road.
And it goes beyond phones. Perhaps it would be safer to temporarily disable all interfaces if a car is going through a certain g-load, or yaw-rate, or rate-of-steer. Drivers would soon learn they couldn’t use these dashboard features as they accelerate or brake or turn over a given threshold.
That would help, but none of this would eliminate driver distraction. No, the only thing that’s going to eliminate the problem of driver distraction is taking the driver out of the equation altogether.
And that’s why I keep arguing for autonomous cars. But the self-driving car is a technology that still is a decade away. So in the meantime, auto makers need to provide the feedback that will do a better job of reducing driver distraction.
John McElroy is editorial director of Blue Sky Productions and producer of “Autoline” for WTVS-Channel 56, Detroit, and “Autoline Daily,” the online video newscast.
