Waste Time or Lose Life: Assessing the Risk of Phoning While Driving

Introduction

All of us who have learned to drive should remember how this task was demanding, requiring the coordination of actions and sustained attention. However, automation of motor and cognitive skills gradually mobilizes fewer resources on driving, making the driver more available without impairing safety. These resources are thus freed for related activities such as listening to the radio or chat with passengers. Managing two tasks simultaneously refers unambiguously to the field of dual-task research. Research then raised the question of whether we could perform two tasks simultaneously while maintaining the same efficiency. Early research on dual-task clearly evidenced that performance in either or both task was drastically impaired under these conditions (Welford, 1960). Reaction time (RT) may increase when two cognitive tasks are carried out simultaneously (Pashler, 1994). However, selective effects of dual-task are reported and the task clearly identified as the main task may relatively be preserved if the capacity of processing information is not exceeded. When this capacity is exceeded and when no priority is given, both tasks undergo the deleterious effect of being performed simultaneously (Kramer & Spinks, 1991). The same observation can be made on movement time. When two motor tasks are simultaneously performed the time to carry out both tasks is also increased. Thus, phoning may interfere with driving in terms of sensory inputs and motor outputs. Attention should be shared between visual road information and auditory conversation information. Similarly, holding a cell-phone may interfere with driving actions such as changing gears or keeping the driving-wheel. Research has thus considered phoning while driving as a dual task (Strayer & Johnston, 2001). Dual task generally increases the amount of information to be processed and the central nervous system works as if a bottleneck limits memory retrieval processes as well as motor planning and programming. Interference leads to multiple decision-making elements and has negative impact on driving performance when compared to driving without interference with only one decision-making element (Blanco et al., 2006). Conversely, being engaged in a dual-task is believed to have the potential to increase alertness and thus anticipation in traffic. The aim of this article is to give an overview on the risk of using a cell-phone while driving. Dr. Karel Brookhuis, at University of Groningen (Brookhuis et al., 1991) was among the first authors to publish an experimental study examining this topic. The famous New England Journal of Medicine published the epidemiological study by Drs. Donald Redelmeier and Robert Tibshirani at the University of Toronto (Redelmeier & Tibshiraini, 1997). Drs William Horrey and Christopher Wikens at the University of Illinois (Horrey & Wickens, 2006) provided the first meta-analysis highlighting the impact of cell-phone conversations on driving. Dr. David Strayer (Strayer et al., 2011) at the University of Utah and Dr. Jeff Caird (Caird et al., 2007) at the University of Calgary are among the leading experts in this research area.