The number and usage of mobile telephones has increased lately, particularly in the industrialised world. As a result of an estimated penetration of 1 mobile phone unit per 10 cars in the year 2000, the Dutch Telecom decided that an investigation concerning probable side-effects of telephoning while driving for traffic safety should be carried out as soon as possible. Adaptions and measures with respect to the apparatus and it's use, if any are necessary, in order to increase the user's safety, can be carried out at an early point in time in that case. A negative influence of mobile phone use on traffic safety will be manifest in an increasing number of traffic accidents as a consequence of insufficient attention, leading to impaired perception of relevant stimuli in traffic. Telephoning while driving should be considered as a double task in which attention has to be shifted from the primary task, handling the vehicle, to the secondary task, telephoning, if some aspect of handling the telephone demands that. This might be critical, depending on the amount and time of interference with the driving task. There are few studies in this field, that indicate deteriorating driving performance when a telephone has to be handled at the same time. Particularly perception, decision making and some aspects of motor performance may be critically impaired under conditions of telephoning while driving. However, favourable effects have been reported too, i.e. In vigilance conditions a voice communication task alerted the drivers and alleviated driving performance. To date, the range of the studies in this field is limited with respect to traffic safety in general, mainly because they were not carried out in the actual traffic environment. Therefore, the present study is devised to investigate the effects of telephoning while driving in actual traffic on several relevant aspects of driving performance. (Author/publisher)
Abstract