National Safety Council

The National Safety Council is a nationwide nonprofit which focusses on making things safer on the roads and in the workplace.  A recent study by the NSC found that the three biggest causes of fatalities on the road are:

• Alcohol (30%)
• Speeding (30%)
• Distracted Driving (26%)

A few years ago, auto manufacturers and cell phone manufacturers tried to work a technological fix for the dangers of distracted driving.  They created hands-free interaction, like Siri.  However, those technologies may be giving us a false sense of security.

A recent study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that the distraction caused by hands-free devices was roughly equal to the distraction caused by manual texting.  The study found that drivers who were texting hands-free had their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel, but that they were subject to a phenomenon called "inattention blindness," in which they are looking at the road, but failing to process half of the information before them.

According to the National Safety Council,

• Distracted drivers tend to miss visual cues such as exits, red lights and stop signs.
• Driver reaction and response time become delayed as they are required to “attention switch,” causing a delay in a driver's braking reaction time.
• Driver reaction time with use of a hands-free device is slower than the reaction time of driver impaired at a .08 alcohol intoxication concentration, according to the NSC.

Did you get that last one?  Driver reaction time with the use of a hands-free device, whether integrated into the car, or one such as Siri on an iPhone, is slower than someone who is over the legal limit for alcohol. That is really a remarkable finding.

So the next time you are tempted to make yourself safer by using the hands-free mode on your cell phone, maybe it would just be a better idea to wait.  As I have always said, the best place for a cell-phone, is in the trunk, where you won't be tempted.