Mobiele computers in personenauto’s en mogelijke effecten op de verkeersveiligheid : een inventarisatie.

This literature study makes an inventory of developments in the field of mobile computers in cars: mobile multi-media information and communication systems. The report also contains an exploration of possible road safety effects of such systems. The developments in the field of computer functions in cars are incredibly rapid. According to market prognoses, millions of motorists will soon have a multi-media computer in their car. Such a mobile computer can perform tasks in the field of information, communication, and entertainment. Examples of this are dynamic route navigation, contact with alarm services, and mobile office facilities. Apart from this, those systems with a speech interface can take over the operation of existing systems such as air conditioning and car radio. Marketeers expect that such systems will be standard in half of all new cars in five years time. Until this situation has been reached however, a lot of 'do-it-yourself' systems and interim variants are on sale. These are based on available mobile computers, software, and GPS receivers. Operating the various computer functions can lead to dangerous distraction from the driving task. These effects can not, as yet, be quantified sufficiently. However, based on empirical research, there is an indication that about 1.3% of all accidents have a direct relation with distraction caused by manually operating a car radio, air conditioning, or telephone. Mobile computers in the car can replace this manual operating by speech operating and thus possibly reduce driver's distraction. On the other hand, more intensive use of these easy functions could in fact lead to a new type of distraction. There is also a considerable increase in the number of functions, and with it the number of sources of possible distraction. For some of these, such as facilities for technical control and car maintenance, in principle, a positive safety effect is expected. In the case of other functions, such as entertainment, distraction is expected to dominate. However, the balance of the positive and negative effects is, as yet, very difficult to estimate.