Distracted driving and associated crash risks.

Details

• Creators:
  Ishak, Sherif ; Codjoe, Julius ; Thapa, Raju ; McCarter, Kevin
• Corporate Creators:
  Southwest Region University Transportation Center (U.S.)
• Corporate Contributors:
  Louisiana. Department of Transportation and Development ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Distracted driving
  • Human factors in crashes
  • Traffic safety
  • Human Factors
  • Driver Distraction
  • Crash Risk
  • Roadway
  • Safety
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA/LA.14/530
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  Louisiana. Department of Transportation and Development
• Abstract:
  Distracted driving is a dangerous epidemic that has resulted in deaths and injuries in crashes throughout the U.S. Research is ; needed to understand whether common cognitive tasks such as texting, handheld cell phone conversation, and front-seat ; passenger conversation cause distracted driving and also increase the risk of crashing. The acquisition of the LSU driving ; simulator offered opportunity for experimental work to be undertaken in this field of research. Sixty-seven participants from ; the LSU community of students and staff members, DOTD staff, and the general public participated in the experimental work. ; Participants were placed in simulated environments while being exposed to different tasks (handheld cell phone conversation, ; texting, and front-seat passenger conversation) to determine the effect on their driving task. Using Lane Position Variability ; and Mean Velocity to respectively represent lateral and longitudinal control of the vehicle, the results suggest that there was ; no significant decrease in driver performance during the cell phone conversation. On the contrary, during the texting event, a ; significant decrease in driving performance was observed in both lateral and longitudinal control of the vehicle. Front-seat ; passenger task produced significant decrease in the lateral control of the vehicle but not in its longitudinal control. The results ; also suggest that even though participants maintained longitudinal control of the vehicle during the handheld phone and ; passenger conversation drives, they significantly slowed their speeds in the process. However for the texting drive, even ; though they significantly slowed down, the participants still exhibited loss of longitudinal control of the vehicle. The findings ; of this study have safety and policy implications in the campaign to reduce distracted driving.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/31929/dot_31929_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 10.91 MB]
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers ; US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:3bd48bdf056c350a0e0a89f8dfde8966cc848114afea2012756587b59e252426