IN-VEHICLE SAFETY

Is Driver Distraction Driving Us To Accidents?

BY AL HAAS
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

NEW YORK - Driver distraction has always been with us. The earliest motorists daydreamed, peered at pretty pedestrians, yelled at back-seat kids, and kissed front-seat significant others.

Ultimately, distractions such as the cell phone exact no small amount of tribute. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 25 percent of the crashes reported by the nation's police each year are triggered by some form of distraction. Bob Lange, General Motors Corp.'s safety director, believes that same proportion applies to traffic fatalities. "To attribute 10,000

of the almost 41,000 traffic deaths each year to driver distraction is probably a conservative estimate," he said. Over the years, dangerous diversions of our eyes and minds have multiplied at a rate worthy of a 866-MHz Pentium III chip. Changing habits and technology have steadily increased the number of potentially dangerous distractions, tacking on attention-diverters such as radio and climate controls, eating and drinking, cellular phones and navigation systems.

Cell phones have quickly become one of the biggest offenders. The number of wireless-phone users in this country has grown from five million in 1990 to more than 100 million today, and surveys show that 85 percent of the people using those phones employ them while driving. Indeed, calls from moving vehicles account for half of all our cellular air time.

Decreasing these dangerous and even lethal distractions can be accomplished in several ways, including legislation. Regulating cellular-phone use in moving vehicles has been the subject of more than 100 bills introduced in 37 states since 1995.

Distraction also can be tackled through research and education, and that is the path GM is taking in a $10 million initiative called "SenseAble driving."

During a recent briefing here in the General Motors Building, Lange said research into driver distraction would be joined by an ambitious nationwide education program aimed at helping people keep their attention on the road.

The research will start fairly close to square one because we don't have a lot of solid, scientific knowledge about this problem. Heck, we don't even know for sure that playing driver/passenger kissy-face constitutes heavy-duty distraction.

"Funny thing, but there's no good research on that," Lange said. "A consultant I know did estimate that 5 to 10 percent of distraction accidents have a sexual content."

Early on, Lange said, researchers will set up a course at a GM test track and then have people drive it - at first doing nothing but operating the car, and then also doing things like making phone calls, eating, drinking, and changing radio stations and climate settings.

The idea is to first determine the baseline deviations from the course during the driving-only phase, and then see what happens when the additional tasks are performed.

Measuring just how much the various tasks take the driver off course will do more than put distractions on a scale of 1 to 10, Lange suggested.

"If we do this right, we can find out what amount of driver distraction is acceptable, how much it takes to risk an accident."

While the research answers aren't here yet, GM has developed a set of common-sense principles to minimize distraction for users of information-delivery systems, such as OnStar, that it develops for its vehicles.

These include designs intended to keep the driver's eyes on the road and hands on the wheel (an approach that also underlies GM's introduction of a built-in, voice-activated car phone and information service).

"The key issue with cell-phone handsets and computer screens is the need for the driver to move hands from the wheel and eyes from the road," GM chairman Jack Smith said in a recent speech. "Our goal is to reduce this need as much as possible through the use of voice-interface technology."

The principles also call for minimizing the number of steps required to perform a given task, creating a common way for drivers of all GM vehicles to interact with each system, and using lock-out devices to prevent system use that puts too much demand on the driver's attention. For example, Lange said, a navigation system could be designed so that it could be re-set only when the vehicle's transmission was in the "park" position.

Here are some anti-distraction tips from the SenseAble driving education program:

* Keep your eyes on the road by using a hands-free telephone, and employing memory-dialing and directory assistance when possible.

* Keep your hands on the wheel by programming your favorite radio stations, and arranging tapes and CDs in an accessible spot. Don't try to retrieve objects that have fallen on the floor while driving.

* Teach your children the importance of good behavior in the car.

* Avoid eating and drinking while driving. If you must, choose easy-to-handle foods and keep the beverages in a cupholder.

* Designate the front-seat passenger to serve as navigator rather than fumbling with maps and navigation systems.

* Take a break if you find yourself lost in thought.

* Avoid stressful or confrontational conversation while driving.

There have been a number of milestones along the way to our current state of advanced driver distraction, many of them decidedly more substantive than others. Let's check out a few:

* By 1913, windshield wipers were standard equipment on a large number of American cars, but many feared that their rhythmic motion would distract drivers, and lull them into trances.

* As the Roaring '20s drew to a close, a lot of government officials were getting exercised about those new-fangled car radios. They thought they distracted drivers, and disturbed the peace. Two states attempted to ban them.

* In 1954, a milkshake machine salesman named Ray Kroc visited with two of his customers, Richard and Maurice McDonald, the owners of a drive-in restaurant in San Bernadino, Calif. By the time he left, Kroc had a deal with the McDonalds to franchise restaurants similar to theirs. He thought his countrymen would like drive-through fast food, and he was right: Today, half the meals Americans eat outside the home come from fast-food emporiums - and many of them are eaten in automobiles.

* Cellular phones were introduced in the United States in 1983. The first ones were big, expensive, and largely the province of middle-aged businessmen. By 1995, they were small, cheap, and mostly used for personal conversations, which GM says now constitute 56 percent of calls. In 1997, a traffic safety agency study based on North Carolina crash data showed there was a connection between cell-phone use and automobile accidents, but could not say how strong that correlation was.