DRIVER DISTRACTION
Motor vehicles disaster or
car accidents are quiet happen in our country, Malaysia. These situations are happening
especially during celebrating festival of the year. There are a lot of
festivals celebrating in this country such as Hari Raya Puasa, Chinese New
Year, Deepavali and other more. The Police of Malaysia (PDRM) had made a lot of
operation to reduce the number of the accident in the entire road around the
country. They introduce the operation such as Ops Sikap1, Ops Sikap2 and Ops
Selamat. However there is still having the driver who does not care about the
rule and made the number of accident keep increasing. The political people had
debate a lot about the case in the parliament in order to find the suitable
solution. However, the result still does not give many changes in the number of
accident. So, in order to resolve this problem, we firstly should focus on the
factors that make the accident happen. There are some factors that are highly
important such as road condition, weather condition, and driver condition. All
of that are come from the driver distraction. This is the topic that will
elaborate more in this article.
Driver distraction
can be defined as the diversion of attention away from activities critical
for safe driving toward a competing activity[1].
In the other words, there is something that takes a person who drives the car,
which is their mind off other especially in more serious affairs. Psychologists
have known for more than century that humans are fundamentally limited in their
ability to divide attention between competing tasks[2]
and that, under certain conditions (i.e., when the tasks are highly demanding,
and require continuous attention[3]),
the performance of one or both will inevitably suffer. There has been much
debate in the scientific literature about the locus of this limitation and the
psychological mechanisms that give rise to it. Diversion of attention away from
activities critical for safe driving toward a competing activity can occur willingly,
such as when driver initiates a mobile phone conversion, or it can occur
involuntary, such as when item of information in the road environment (e.g., a
moving billboard, an ambulance siren) compels the driver to attend to it.
Indeed, the human mind is easily diverted from one activity to another, and
there is good reason for this. From an evolutionary perspective, it is often
advantageous. It is no accident of nature that certain objects, events, and
activities are more diverting than others. There is biological advantage in
having the human mind unwittingly orient itself toward objects, events, and
activities that signify danger (such as a child running unexpectedly onto the
roadway ahead, or a spider crawling on the windscreen) or to those that may be
instrumental in perpetuating the species (such as other humans deemed to be
attractive). Advertising material is design to exploit this gift of nature;
billboards are designed to attract attention.
As driving is a
task that relies primarily on visual information, a sensible starting place is
to define in general terms what sorts of visual information are present in many
roadways. There are various means by which it can be determined which objects
in the external environment could potentially distract a driver; one
approach is presented in the following text. Other approaches would include
examining the sources of distraction cited in police forms, using verbal
protocol analysis while people are driving or using simulator data. The
possible taxonomy of visual information in the road environment suggested here
classifies entities into one of the four groups: built roadway (entities
put there explicitly by road/highway engineers), situational entities, the
natural environment, and the built environment[4].
One way to discover what things in the external environment are distracting is
simply to ask drivers. Surprisingly, little research has been conducted in this
area; however, recent research by Edquist et al.[5]
explored the related issue of what drivers meant by “visual clutter” in the
roadway environment. In this work, 54 drivers viewed a series of different road
scenes and took part in the group discussion.
Another one of the
most frequently reported is used of a mobile, or cellular, phone.
Several studies have demonstrated that the distracting effect of concurrent
mobile phone use on driving performance measures is greater for older drivers
compared with other age groups. More
specific areas of detection time,[6]
visual scanning,[7]
lane keeping and driving speed,[8]
visual fixation and recognition memory, and time to dial and answer the phone.
In contrast, in some studies no such age differences have been found. These
authors reported that the effects of handsfree phone conversation tasks on reaction
time, following distance, and speed recovery after braking did not differ
between drivers aged 18-25 years and those aged 65-74. A possible reason for
this finding may be that older drivers were compared with young drivers, who
demonstrate similar degradations in driving when distracted. In addition,
Shinar et al. demonstrated that the initial deleterious effects of handsfree
phone conversations on many simulated driving tasks were reduced or eliminated
with continued practise, albeit at a faster rate for younger drivers (aged
18-33) than for older drivers (aged 60-71). More specifically, in the course of
five sessions, participants were given two kinds of distracting phones tasks
while driving: (1) an arithmetic operations task and (2) a conversation in
which participants were asked a series of questions about information they had
provided before the tasks to generate conversations that would be emotionally
challenging. The authors report that the effects of the distracting tasks on
driving were greatest when the distracting task was difficult; the driver was
older (60-71 years). All participants owned mobile phones and all reported
having used their phone while driving, with reported usage rates varying from
rarely to frequently.
More recently,
Greenberg et al.[9]
reported that when compared with drivers aged 25-66 years, teenage drivers
(16-18 years) detected fewer events occurring in a simulated roadway when
dialling a handheld phone and had a higher lane violation rate when accessing
voice mails. In addition, Schreiner et al.[10]
also found, in a closed course study, that older drivers’ (mean age 57 years)
ability to detect forward and peripheral events while concurrently driving and
using a voice recognition system to dial phone numbers was impaired compared
with their baseline performance. The younger to middle-aged drivers (mean age
23 years), however, did not demonstrate a performance decrement when
interacting with the voice recognition system. Similarly, McPhee et al.[11]
found that compared with the younger to middle-aged drivers (aged 17-33 years),
older drivers (56-71 years were less accurate and slower at identifying target
signs in a digitized image of a traffic scene when engaging in a simulated
conversation (e.g., listening to and answering questions about a short
paragraph). Finally, driving simulator research by Shinar et al.[12]
demonstrated that older drivers’ (60-71) driving performance (e.g., speed
control and lane keeping) was more adversely affected by phone conversations
than that of middle-aged (30-33 years) and young, inexperienced (18-22 years)
drivers. The driving performance of the young and middle-age groups when
distracted was similar.
Alice Chong was
driving home from work and approaching a toll plaza when her phone rang.
Without thinking twice, she reached for her phone which was in her handbag on
the seat next to her. In the blink of an eye, her brand new car had ploughed
into the back of a van. The price of that phone call? She was without a car for
two months and her vehicle suffered extensive damage to the radiator, body work
and engine. “I only took my eye off the road for a few seconds but that proved to
be a very expensive lesson for me,” says Alice (not her real name), who
swears never to touch the mobile phone again while driving. As the experts say,
it only takes a second for an accident to happen. There is more concern now
that more people seem to be texting while driving, a task labelled as “very
distracting” for drivers. Out of the 73 billion messages Malaysians sent last
year, one can only wonder how many were sent out while behind the wheel of a
vehicle. This subject has come under close scrutiny of late in the United States,
where many states have been introducing laws to ban texting while driving. This
follows several major accidents linked to texting in the past few months.[13]
There are no
statistics available in Malaysia on the phenomenon but Malaysian Institute of
Road Safety Research (Miros) director-general Prof Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd
Sadullah says that distracted driving contributes to out-of-control
driving. This, in turn, is one of the biggest contributors to accidents. For
collisions in 2007, out-of-control driving contributed to 23% (1,318 out of
5,672 cases) of fatal accidents and 14% of overall accidents (3,674 out of
27,035 cases). Dr Ahmad believes that mobile phones are one of the biggest
distractions. “Phones are a major culprit even though we have laws prohibiting
their use (while driving),” he says. He believes that road safety has a lot to
do with prevailing culture and while the mobile phone has given us a sense of
urgency, it has become a distraction. “When the phone rings, there is a
compulsion that we have to pick it up. The mobile phone provides promptness but
this is dangerous (when driving),” says Dr Ahmad. Dr Ahmad says studies have
shown that using a hands-free device causes as much a distraction as talking on
the phone. “When talking (without hands-free kit), we don’t have full control
of the steering wheel and our concentration is divided between the conversation
and the road.[14]
A study by the Queensland University
of Technology has found that self-assessment of driving skills among older
drivers may produce an inaccurate appraisal of actual driving skills. The study was primarily funded by the Trust
with financial support from the Qld Department of Transport and Main Roads. The
study involved a sample of 98 Brisbane drivers aged 65 years and over who had
held a drivers licence for in excess of 50 years. “The results of this study
indicated virtually no link between drivers’ assessment of their driving
ability and their performance on the computer test,” Trust Chairman Professor Don Aitkin AO said. “Furthermore, there was no relationship
between the test results and their reported driving self-restriction. “In a
nutshell, many of the drivers in the study were not as good as they thought
they were,” Professor Aitkin said. This study suggests that self-assessment of
driving ability may be a poor basis for decisions on the need for any driving
self-restriction. “This study has provided yet more evidence that the hazard
perception prowess of older drivers deteriorates with age,” Professor Aitkin
said. As a consequence, it is important
for older drivers to ensure they are health-aware. “It is
estimated that up to 23% of crashes and near-crashes are caused by driver
distraction,” Trustee, Dr
Angus McIntosh OAM said. This figure is likely to increase as
more and more distractions, both inside and outside the vehicle, compete for
driver attention. “We are all familiar
with the variety of things that can distract us while driving – be it using a
mobile phone or adjusting the volume on the radio. Given the contribution of driver distraction
to road trauma, this unique resource is clearly compulsory reading for anyone
interested in road safety,” Dr McIntosh said.
In conclusion, we
have much reviewed much of the knowledge that exists on driver distraction-
what it means, theories describing its mechanisms, its effects. On the basis of
the material reviewed, several conclusions can be drawn. There is converging
evidence that driver distraction is significant road safety problem
worldwide. Findings from the analysis of police-reported crashes, suggest
that driver distraction is a contributing factor in 10% to 12% of crashes. Data
from the 100-car naturalistic driving study in the United States, suggest that
distraction from secondary tasks may be a contributing factor in up to 23% of
crashes and near-crashes. Although estimates vary due to differences in
definitions, data collection methods, and classification schemes, there is good
reason to believe that all of these estimates underestimate the true scale of
the problem. About one-third of all distractions appear to drive from outside
the vehicle, and between about 15% and 20% involve driver interaction with
technology. Distraction appears to be largely associated with rear-end crashes,
same travel way or same direction crashes, single-vehicle crashes, and crashes
occurring at night.
Not all
distraction is bad distraction[15].
The driver distraction issue has a flip side too. Some potentially distracting
activities may have safety benefits, such as combating the effects of
drowsiness or fatigue (as in the case of a truck driver using a CB radio[16]).
There are also situations in which the attention of the individual in charge of
the vehicle is drawn to circumstances other than its momentary control that may
be beneficial for the personal safety and even survival of the driver, for
example when taking hand off the wheel to parry the attack of a snake coiled on
the passenger seat. The scientific, philosophical, legal, and moral issues
concerning are important ones that remain to be explored. In order to avoid
accident happen to our community, we need to aware and alert one another in the
road safety. Although it might not happen to us, but it might be happen to our
family. Don’t make the person that we love and we care a lot, has to be
sacrificed. Loving is caring. So, in our caring, we will make love one another
maybe as a friend just like Muhammad S.A.W with Abu Bakar, Umar, Othman, and
Ali. The strong relationship will give the best ummah in the world. Before
ending this article, I would like to remind all people to always be alert on
the safety of the road and follow the regulations that had been made by our
government. It is hoped that the knowledge provide in this article will help to
prevent further tragedies of this kind from occurring.
[1] Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver
Distraction, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 3, 2009.
[3] Gladstones,
W.H., Regan, M.A., and Lee, R.B., Division of attention: The single-channel
hypothesis revisited, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41A,
1-17, 1989.
[4] Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver
Distraction, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 218, 2009.
[5] Edquist,
J., Horberry, T., Regan, M.A., and Johnston, I., Visual Clutter and
external-to-vehicle driver distraction, In Faulkers, I.J., Regan, M.A., Brown,
J., Sterverson, M.R., and Porter, A. (Eds.). Driver Distractions: Proceedings
of an International Conference on Distracted Driving, Sydney, Australia,
2-3 June. Canberra: Australasian College of Road Safety, 2005.
[6] McKnight,
A. J. and McKnight, A. S., The effect of cellular phone use upon driver
attention, Accident Analysis and Prevention 25, 259-265, 1993.
[7] McCarley,
J. S., Vais, M. J., Pringle, H., Kramer, A.F., Irwin, D. E., and Staryer, D.
L., Conversation disrupts change detection in complex traffic scenes, Human
Factors 46, 424-436, 2004.
[8] Nilsson,
L. and Alm, H., Effect of Mobile Telephone Use on Elderly Drivers’ Behaviour
Including Comparisons to Young Drivers’ Behaviour, Swedish National Road
and Transport Research Intitute (VTI), Lingkoping, Sweden., 1991.
[9]
Greenberg, J., Tijerina, L., Curry, R., Artz, B., Cathey, L., Grant, P.,
Koachhar, D., Kozak, K., and Blommer, M., Evaluation of driver distraction
using an event detection paradigm, Journal of the Transportation Research
Board No. 1843, 1-9, 2003.
[10] Schreiner,
C., Blanco, M., and Hankey, J. M., Investigating the effect of performing voice
recognition tasks on detection of forward and peripheral events, Human
Factors and Ergonomics Society 48th Annual Meeting, New Orleans,
Lousiana, 2004, pp. 2354-2358.
[11] McPhee,
L. C., Scialfa, C. T., Dennis, W.M., Ho, G., and Caird, J.K., Age differences
in visual search for traffic signs during a simulated conversation, Human
Factors 46(4), 674, 2004.
[12] Shinar,
D., Tractinsky, N., and Compton, R., Effects of practice, age, and task
demands, on interference from a phone task while driving, Accident Analysis
& Prevention 37(2), 315-326, 2005.
[15] Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver
Distraction, CAC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 629, 2009.
[16]
Michael A. Regan, John D. Lee, and Kristie L. Young, Driver Distraction, CAC
Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 388, 2009.
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