The US Department of Transportation released distraction guidelines that
encourage automobile manufacturers to limit the distraction risk connected
to electronic devices built into their vehicles, such as communications,
entertainment and navigation devices.
"Distracted driving is a deadly epidemic that has devastating consequences
on our nation's roadways," said Secretary LaHood. "These
guidelines recognize that today's drivers appreciate technology, while
providing automakers with a way to balance the innovation consumers want
with the safety we all need. Combined with good laws, good enforcement
and good education, these guidelines can save lives."
Issued by the Department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA), the voluntary guidelines establish specific recommended criteria
for electronic devices installed in vehicles at the time they are manufactured
that require drivers to take their hands off the wheel or eyes of the
road to use them.
The guidelines include recommendations to limit the time a driver must
take his eyes off the road to perform any task to two seconds at a time
and twelve seconds total. The guidelines also recommend disabling several
operations unless the vehicle is stopped and in park, such as:
Manual text entry for the purposes of text messaging and internet browsing;
Video-based entertainment and communications like video phoning or video
conferencing; Display of certain types of text, including text messages,
web pages, social media content.
The recommendations outlined in the guidelines are consistent with the
findings of a new NHTSA naturalistic driving study, The Impact of Hand-Held
and Hands-Free Cell Phone Use on Driving Performance and Safety Critical
Event Risk. The study showed that visual-manual tasks associated with
hand-held phones and other portable devices increased the risk of getting
into a crash by three times.
"The new study strongly suggests that visual-manual tasks can degrade
a driver's focus and increase the risk of getting into a crash up
to three times," said David L. Strickland, NHTSA Administrator. "The
new guidelines and our ongoing work with our state partners across the
country will help us put an end to the dangerous practice of distracted
driving by limiting the amount of time drivers take their eyes off the
road, hands off the wheel and their attention away from the task of driving."
The study found text messaging, browsing, and dialing resulted in the
longest duration of driver's taking their eyes-off-road. Text messaging
increased the risk of a crash or near-crash by two times and resulted
in the driver's eyes off the road for an average of 23.3 seconds total.
Visual-manual activities performed when completing a phone call –
such as reaching for a phone, looking up a contact and dialing the number
– increased the risk by three times.
The study did not find a direct increased crash risk from the specific
act of talking on a cell phone. However, the manual-visual interactions
involved with using a hand-held phone made its overall use 1.73 times
more risky, since the use of these devices involve visual-manual tasks
100 percent of the time. Even portable hands-free and in-vehicle hands-free
cell phone use was found to involve visual-manual tasks at least 50 percent
of the time, which are associated with higher risk.
The guidelines and research announced today are part of Secretary LaHood's
Blueprint for Ending Distracted Driving, a comprehensive plan that builds
on the national momentum the Department has spearheaded for the last three
years. Recognizing the extent and complexity of the problem, the Department
will continue to work with federal, state and local partners, the auto
industry, and safety community to address distraction. Currently, the
Department is partnering with the Transportation Research Board on a naturalistic
driving study involving nearly 3,000 vehicles to examine the nation's
highway system including speed, curves, intersection control, lighting,
driver fatigue, and distraction, among others. Distraction is one of many
safety topics that will be examined as part of this large-scale data collection.
You can read more from distraction.gov.