Death By Distraction - Statistical Data Included

Gerry Kobe

The in-car "telematics" revolution will soon include e-mail, beepers and even Internet access. Automakers claim the systems will be safe. But safety experts say they could prove deadly

Two-year-old Morgan Lee Pena's eyes grew heavy as she leaned her weight against the snug straps of her carseat. It was naptime, and Morgan was exhausted from spending Tuesday morning with her four-year-old cousin, Christian. Her mother, Patricia, was carefully driving the family Jeep home from her sister's house, who lived just minutes away from the Pena's Perkasie, Pa., home. She was smiling as she approached the intersection of Route 152 and Rickert Road, enjoying a perfect autumn day.

For Frederick R. Poust of Quakertown, Pa., that day was decidedly more hectic. The November 2, 1999, entry in his planner showed that he had a lunch date, but he was already hopelessly late. He reached over on the seat of his Ford Explorer and picked up his cell phone to call ahead. Maintaining a steady 45 mph, his eyes glanced down at the phone's keypad as he approached the stop sign at Route 152 and Rickert Road.

Pena's Jeep entered the intersection. Poust kept dialing and driving.

Little Morgan Lee Pena received fatal head injuries in the broadside collision that followed and died the following day at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Poust, who was not injured in the collision, received two traffic tickets and a $50 fine.

As more injuries and fatalities occur, and high-tech mobile communications use and capability expands, the question that now looms large over the auto industry and government regulators is how to make driving with these systems safer. Statistics show that cell phone use while driving causes accidents, but with the exception of Oklahoma, state accident reports don't include cell phone use data. That makes the magnitude of the problem in the U.S. an unknown. Advocates believe hands-free technology will simply resolve the safety issue and that it will become a moot point, but several recent studies indicate hands-flee is not the answer.

Research conducted by the Sunnybrook Health Science Center in North York, Ontario, and subsequently published in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that hands-free phones offer no safety advantage over hand-held. And according to Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier, who conducted the study with statistician Robert J. Tibshirani, Ph.D., the findings indicate that cell phones, like many other in-car devices, facilitate the mental distractions that in turn cause the accidents.

"This may indicate that the main factor in most motor vehicle collisions is a driver's limitations in attention, rather than dexterity," Redelmeier concludes.

Other published data validates the theory that a driver distracted by any source is at risk -- particularly with distractions that require the driver's concentration. Dr. Michael J. Goodman, human factors research specialist for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), says his group conservatively estimates about 150,000 crashes each year are related to ordinary radio use, primarily because it demands the driver's attention.

The implications of these findings and the possible litigation they could inspire may prove devastating for existing and future product plans of both automakers and aftermarket companies. For example, Cadillac recently announced that it would be the first vehicle manufacturer to offer factory-installed e-marl and Internet access in its 2001 Seville/Deville vehicles. And several other high-end vehicle manufacturers have similar rollout plans in place. In addition, aftermarket giant Clarion currently offers AutoPC, a voice-activated dash-mounted unit that features e-mail access. Both the OE and aftermarket units have been designed for hands-on-the-wheel, eyes-on-the-road safety, but if Redelmeier's research is valid, those may not be the key factors in safety.

"These companies that are adding distractive devices to automobiles are begging for trouble," warns attorney Chris Fallon. Fallon, who is currently representing Patricia Pena in a settlement related to the loss of her daughter, says, "If I had a client that was injured by someone because he was checking his e-mail, then I'd have a great case against the industry for selling a defective product. In essence, they built in a device that is guaranteed to distract the driver."

Fallon's candor is not lost on Cadillac. The division is keenly aware of the delicate nature of how to safely add computing and communications capability to its vehicles, and through the efforts of General Motors' E-GM division and system supplier Delco Electronics, it is designing in what it considers to be foolproof safeguards. Specifically, text functions such as e-mail are deactivated unless the vehicle is stopped, so too are programming functions for the navigation system. For convenience and safety while drive-mail is made available through text-to-voice technology that will essentially "read" e-mail to the driver.

"Even this concerns us says Paul Green, senior research scientist at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). `We are working with automakers to find the best solution, but we are not there yet. People will argue that if they can talk to someone in a car, then they can listen to e-mail. But there is something more challenging about it. When someone is next to you, they stop talking if a car pubs out in front of you And they are even a second set of eyes and yell `watch out,' if they see something that you don't. An e-mail message will just keep going and not ebb and flow depending on what goes on around you."

Green adds that hands-free operation of such a device is probably better than hands-on, but says e-mail is written to be read and not heard. He points out that written messages usually contain a lot more detail than a spoken conversation, and while the hands-free interface makes getting the message easy, the content may be too difficult to comprehend.

"The hands-free aspect is not the issuer Green says. Hands-free phones didn't make a lot of difference from a safety standpoint, because the dialing episode lasts only a few seconds. Less than one-fourth of cell phone related accidents occur when dialing. Almost half come from receiving calls that force a person to take their mind off the road unexpectedly. A long, complex e-mail message can put a driver's mind other than where it needs to be."

NHTSA's Goodman also has reservations about introducing the new systems, especially since there is no information available from which to make an informed decision. He says the data simply doesn't exist that confirms the new technologies are safe or not safe. And their complexity makes them a concern that needs to be studied more.

"Understand that there are four categories of distraction," Goodman says. "There is visual, auditory, biomechanical and then the most elusive, which is cognitive distraction. The last one is of great interest to us because it gets to the root of the cell phone controversy and, I suppose, also to these more complex systems that are coming. It addresses the reason behind crashes where the driver is absorbed in a conversation, is looking ahead, but then still has a rear-end collision. We call it `look but did not see.' That's cognitive distraction. Can we expect the same thing from having your email read to you? We don't know yet."

Cadillac doesn't dispute critics who say there is no hard data on its upcoming systems. However, the decision to pioneer the technology was partially based on the belief that designing a cell phone, e-mail, Internet and navigation system that is optimized for safety is actually safer than what is currently being done on the highway. Advocates point out that motorists don't hesitate to multitask now, including using hand-held cell phones, laptops, beepers and portable GPS systems in their vehicles. In fact, 50% to 70% of cellular minutes are consumed in automobiles

"Is it safe?" asks Karenann Terrell, director of E-vehicles at E-GM. "No it's not. But we know customers do it anyway. So are we better off to ignore what we know is really happening and let drivers continue to drive with their knees and look at laptop screens sitting on the seat next to them? We think it's better to give them an overall system that is less demanding, with built-in safeguards that interact with the car."

Terrell says E-GM is very familiar with cognitive distraction and is actually working with NHTSA to help understand and quantify the problem. But in lieu of having that research finished, she says the new Cadillac system and any future GM communication/information interface will have four key elements to make it safe.

First it will minimize eyes-off-road and hands-off-wheel time. It will also be designed to reduce the number of steps and complexity to operate any feature, whether it is by voice recognition or buttons. In addition, it will be common across all GM platforms so that improvements are driven into all vehicle lines. And finally, the system will have built-in safeguards that will not allow distractive functions while driving.

Dennis Wilke, corporate vp and director of strategy business development for Motorola's integrated electronics systems sector, says Cadillac is taking the right approach and that voice recognition and text-to-speech is fundamental to a safe system. Motorola recently announced a partnership with interior system supplier Lear, and Wilke says that relationship allows early involvement and the ability to build features into a car rather than adding them on. He says that is the key to what will make the new technologies safe.

"If we do these systems right, we can help drivers stay out of demanding traffic situations," Wilke asserts. "Navigation systems will be coupled with real-time traffic information that will keep you out of congested areas, slippery roads or backups from accidents. It will also tell you when your freeway exit is coming, and if you're not familiar with the area, it will even tell you what side of the road the exit is on. Imagine if we never again had people darting across three lanes of traffic to avoid a traffic backup or to get off on an exit at the last minute. That's the plus side of these systems."

It is also true that the much-maligned cellular phone has a plus side, summoning road service for stranded motorists, giving access to police and ambulance following an accident, or just providing a margin of safety for people travelling alone. Wilke says that because of these positive factors, he feels there is no question that cell phones in cars will reach a point where they are standard on every vehicle regardless of price point. But it still doesn't resolve the issue of how to implement them safely.

One solution that is being discussed is generically called "driver's advocate." UMTRI's Green says the idea has been discussed by a number of systems suppliers, and is supported by his group. Driver's advocate is a work load manager that uses the various sensors on a vehicle to monitor the driving situation. It would also have personal information about the driver, so that it could look at all the factors and determine how much mental and physical capacity the driver has left to safely deal with other sources of information.

"It would monitor curves in the road, or slippery conditions or heavy traffic," says Green. `Then if there was suddenly an incoming phone call, the system would factor in that it is an older driver, in heavy traffic, on a slippery, winding road. It would conclude that it is not safe for the driver to get a phone call, so it would send back a recorded message that the driver is busy and then go into an answering machine function. Then when the conditions improve, the message would be presented to the driver."

Green notes that many vehicles on the road today already have the wheel speed sensors, yaw sensors and steering-wheel-angle sensors needed to do this. It would only require a software solution to put the system in place.

As good as the driver's advocate sounds, Goodman says there is a danger in making systems "too easy." NHTSA is now debating whether or not the systems will get so simplified that it will change the behavior of drivers. The fear is that the frequency and duration of electronics use will increase and people that normally would not consider it will then be doing it.

"That is a great concern to us," says Goodman. "We are looking at the balance between ease of use and the consequence of increased usage of these systems. There is still a question of is it safe -- or is it just safer?. And we don't even know if it is safer."

Curiously, most U.S. states have either never introduced or have defeated proposed legislation on the safety of cell phones in cars, so it is not likely laws tackling the telematics issue will be forthcoming. Personal responsibility or corporate edict will dictate behavior, although the latter is becoming an issue in many large companies. It is often corporate policy to forbid employees to conduct business while driving, in an effort to protect against litigation.

In the end, the question of how to proceed on the telematics boom comes down to this unsolvable equation: common sense versus profits. Our common sense tells us what we should do, but common sense doesn't necessarily make sense when dealing with economics, politics and liability. We know without question that adding any kind of distraction for the driver is going to result in increased crashes. But society is going to have to deal with how many crashes it will tolerate, and to do that it needs to document how many crashes are actually occurring. Right now, and probably for years to come, we don't have those answers.

[GRAPH OMITTED]

Global Laws Governing Cell Phone Use In Vehicles

Australia     Victoria and New South Wales ban
              hand-held phones while driving
Austria       Law banning hand-held cell phone
              use while driving
Belgium       In process of passing law against
              cell phone use
Brazil        Law banning hand-held cell phone
              use while driving
Britain       Pending legislation against cell phone use while
              driving
Canada        Study underway to support possible legislation
Chile         Pending legislation against cell phone use while
              driving
Finland       Study underway to support possible legislation
France        Cell phone use discouraged under existing legislation
Germany       Pending legislation to allow hands free phones only
Israel        Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
Italy         Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
Japan         Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
Netherlands   Pending legislation to allow hands free phones only
Norway        Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
Portugal      Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
Singapore     Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
Spain         Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
Sweden        Cell phone use discouraged under existing legislation
Switzerland   Reduced insurance payouts if accident caused by
              driver using cell phone/legislation against cell
              phone use while driving
Taiwan        Law banning hand-held cell phone use while driving
USA           Study underway to support possible legislation

Sources: NHTSA, UMTRI, Center for Urban Transportation Research (University of South Rodda), National Police Agency of Japan.

Future Shock

Here's what Cadillac hopes will occupy your attention in its future cars

(1) Head-up display

(2) Night Vision system

(3) Obstacle alert

(4) Rear vision cameras

(5) Steering wheel controls

(6) Adaptive cruise control

(7) E-mail access

(8) Navigation system

(9) OnStar (not pictured)

Cellular phones (four total) Rear seat DVD and entertainment Headrest speakers Front and rear radar

RELATED ARTICLE: An 80-Year-Old Distraction

The first in-car radios were installed in the early 1920s. By 1930, laws were being proposed in both Massachusetts and St. Louis to prohibit their use while driving. According to automotive historian Michael Lamm, "Opponents of car radios argued that they distracted drivers and caused accidents, that tuning them took a driver's attention away from the road, and that music could lull a driver to sleep." They also claimed that radios played in open cars distracted the drivers of other cars.

Lamm notes that a trade group, The Radio Manufacturers Assoc., was formed to combat any type of car radio regulation. At a February 1930 public hearing on in-car radio use in Massachusetts, the RMA argued that radios were actually a safety feature-they prevented accidents by keeping drivers awake. The proposal to ban radio use was killed by a landslide vote.

Automakers and radio manufacturers have long sought to take the physical distraction out of tuning an in-car audio system. The first push-button radios appeared in the late 1930s. Their pre-sets made selecting a local radio station (one with a strong signal) quicker than spinning a dial, and it helped keep the driver's right hand on the wheel.

Around the same time, arch-rivals Delco and Philco introduced their Selectronic and Rolo-matic radios. Both units featured a button on the floor board which the driver could tap to change the radio station. In 1942, Delco's new "Signal Seeking" feature automatically homed in on the strongest AM radio signal. Ford's Adjust-O-Matic and the Buick Sonomatic, based on the same principles, soon followed.

But new audio distractions continued to appear. In the late 1950s, Chrysler and RCA both tried to cash in on the 45-rpm record craze by putting phonographs into the automobile. Chrysler's underdash 16 2/3-inch record player was called the "Highway Hi-Fi," but its rudimentary suspension couldn't possibly cushion the tone arm from even the slightest road shocks. Needles would bounce and skate all over the record. Not surprisingly, few were sold.

As the music industry, propelled by rock 'n'roll, boomed in the 1960s, pre-programmed entertainment for drivers began to take over. First came the four-track tape, then the eight-track, which was quickly surpassed in quality and popularity by the cassette. Fiddling with the radio while underway gave way to fiddling with tapes and tape players. The compact disc, which entered the fray in the 1980s, brings with it the joy of stuffing a remote-mounted multidisc player with hours of listening. Or, more likely, it challenges your dexterity.

Pop an individual CD out of its grippy box-holder and slip it into the in-dash player, while sipping a tall latte, dialing the cell phone and trying to keep your hands on the wheel -- and your attention on the road.

--Lindsay Brooke

RELATED ARTICLE: What The Cops See

A ride with Michigan's finest reveals the impact of in-car distractions.

Michigan State Police Trooper ET. Troye wheels his patrol car around the median of I-696. "Hold on, close your eyes or do whatever you gotta do," he orders. "It's rush hour. This is going to be a rough ride but l promise I won't crash us."

Seconds later, the trooper's midnight blue Ford Crown Victoria is westbound, hitting 120 mph down the left shoulder of the grid-locked Detroit freeway. "There's a rollover accident," Troye shouts over the piercing whine of the siren and tires. "These are typical of the kinds of accidents we see when people are distracted on the freeway. They adjust their radio, look at their nav system screen or try to dial their cell phone and the next thing you know, they hang two wheels off the road into the dirt. Then they overcorrect, fishtail, the dirt trips the car and over it goes."

As we arrive on the scene of the accident, his words become an eerily accurate prophecy. A twisted red GMC Jimmy sits motionless on the shoulder. The passenger-side tires are folded beneath the grass- and mud-caked rims and the top is crushed directly over the driver.

"It's like you saw this accident before we even got here," I comment "I did," Troye laments. "Same thing happened yesterday."

Responding to accidents triggered by in-car distractions are part of the daily routine for the police. So, too, are the citations they write for careless driving or improper lane use caused by drivers taking their minds off the road. Troye says he has written more than one ticket to cell phone users who were driving without their hands on the wheel. He even recounts writing up a woman who was driving right through a construction zone.

"Thank God that happened on a weekend and workers were not out there," Troye says. "That lady was driving at speed on the wrong side of the construction barrels when I pulled her over. She was so busy talking on the phone that when I asked her if she knew she was driving through a construction zone, she told me that she thought it was the other lanes that were closed."

Even as Troye is telling the story, a slow moving Pontiac Grand Am ahead of us veers left and then changes lanes abruptly to the right. The car moves halfway onto the right shoulder of the freeway, darts back into the lane and then speeds up to about 70 mph. Through the back window, an antenna appears to be "growing" from the driver's right ear. Troye jokes that either this guy is a Martian or he is chatting on the phone. In ether case, he says he'd like to talk with him.

After a quick stop and verbal warning, Troye is satisfied that the driver at least admits his mind was on his telephone conversation and not on his driving. He says that a "helpful reminder" will probably do more than a citation, but adds that people talking on cell phones make legitimate targets for police because of how they are driving.

"I can't tell you how many cell phone users I have pulled over suspecting I had a drunk driver," Troye stresses. "But when I get to the car window I find them talking on the phone and trying to write something or perhaps looking at a map. And I'm not talking about a few motorists -- I mean hundreds. What is really annoying is that some people are so engrossed in their conversation that I have to tap on the glass to get them to hang up."

Troye says almost every accident can be chalked up to some sort of distraction, be it eating, applying makeup, shaving, changing CDs or rolling up the windows. As a 10-year veteran with the Michigan State Police, he has seen it all and has strong opinions about adding in-car electronics.

"Based on what I see, the average driver isn't ready to have more distractions," he says. "Things like more cell phones, navigation systems, beepers and E-mail are going to cause more accidents-- even if the car is designed to deliver the message by voice. Changing the setting on your radio only lasts a few seconds and that causes accidents. Getting your E-mail is an extended distraction."

Troye emphasizes that driving is already a complex enough task that requires drivers to look, listen, scan mirrors, modulate speed, anticipate, control steering, control braking and always calculate a way out.

"For most people, just driving safely is more than enough food on their plate," he says. "Electronic technology is a great thing but adding it to a car is adding a distraction. To do that is just a recipe for disaster."

--GK

COPYRIGHT 2000 Cahners Publishing Company
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