distracted driving

girl-strangled-by-her-own-wheelchair-as-bus-monitor-texted,-checked-instagram

Girl strangled by her own wheelchair as bus monitor texted, checked Instagram

distracted driving, New Jersey, Policy, texting / /

Cell phones are magnets for our attention, but you can, of course, face significant legal jeopardy for giving them that attention. Just ask the “safety driver” of an Uber self-driving vehicle, which hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. According to authorities, the driver was watching The Voice on Hulu just before the crash—and was then charged with negligent homicide.

These kinds of cases are always tragic because they feel so easily avoidable, but they also happen with enough regularity that it’s easy to tune them out. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,308 people were killed by distracted drivers in 2022 alone—and “texting is the most alarming distraction.”

That’s why states continue to crack down on cell phone use while driving. A Colorado law that went into effect on January 1, for instance, bans a driver from using any mobile electronic device unless it is hands-free. Thirty US states now have such bans in place.

But a trial that wrapped up in New Jersey this week caught my attention, because it is one of the sadder and stranger examples of cell phone-mediated distraction while in a vehicle. A young girl died, and a 28-year-old woman is probably going to jail, but this is not your typical tale of texting while driving. Texting was involved—34 times, in fact—but driving had nothing to do with what happened.

Child endangerment

The trial was about an incident in Franklin Township, New Jersey, on July 17, 2023, when a 6-year-old girl named Fajr Williams got on a bus to attend a summer program. Williams had disabilities and was confined to her wheelchair. The bus had a spot for anchoring wheelchairs to the ground, and it had a ride-along bus monitor named Amanda Davila, 28, who was supposed to watch and assist kids like Williams.

According to state prosecutors, Williams was properly strapped into her wheelchair and had been taken down to the bus by her older sister. Williams was then loaded onto the bus, but her chair was not allegedly attached to the floor correctly, nor were the proper seatbelts used. As a result, while the bus drove its route to school that morning, Williams began to slide down the seat of her wheelchair. (She could not control her trunk movements normally, and so she was unable to sit back up.) At some point in the ride, she slid low enough that her chair’s own four-point harness, which was meant to keep her upright, began to choke her. By the time the bus arrived at school, William had been strangled to death.

Girl strangled by her own wheelchair as bus monitor texted, checked Instagram Read More »

distracted-driving-tool-shows-just-how-far-you-can-travel-while-texting

Distracted driving tool shows just how far you can travel while texting

Cars, distracted driving / /

The texting example is particularly good at getting the point across, at least to me—my times averaged about 14 seconds to complete the task. Had I been behind the wheel of an actual car at that speed, I would have traveled more than 1,400 feet (426 m) with my eyes on the phone during that period. Not good!

Of course, the people behind the distracted driving simulator recognize that this is mostly an awareness-raising tool—for academics studying the topic, we have things like the $80 million National Advanced Driving Simulator, which can pitch, yaw, roll, tilt, and move about inside a large hangar-like room in Coralsville, Iowa.

“While this simulator can’t provide a complete picture of the dangers of distracted driving, our hope is to help illustrate how dangerous it is to glance down at your phone—and remind everyone how that time can add up when you’re behind the wheel,” Ryan said.

Thankfully, the solution to distracted driving is rather simple—at least conceptually. Just keep your eyes on the road, and save the phone use for when you’re parked.

Distracted driving tool shows just how far you can travel while texting Read More »

gamification-gets-drivers-to-put-down-their-phones,-study-finds

Gamification gets drivers to put down their phones, study finds

Cars, distracted driving / /

use bluetooth —

Gamification plus cash prizes worked even better.

–

Close-up Of A Man's Hand Typing Text Message On Mobile Phone While Driving Car

Enlarge / You should not do this while you are driving.

Getty Images

Distracted driving isn’t only a result of drivers using their phones when they should be paying attention. But it is a significant cause of the problem, accounting for at least 13 percent of distracted driving deaths and rising to 1 in 5 for young drivers. Now, a study conducted with customers of the Progressive insurance company has tested different strategies to get those drivers to put their phones down in the car, and it found two that significantly reduced handheld use, with the effect persisting after the end of the study.

The study recruited 1,653 customers already enrolled in its Progressive Snapshot program, which involves the use of a smartphone app that detects phone use while driving. Before the start of the trial, the participants all averaged more than 6.4 minutes per hour of handheld use while driving—Progressive says its safest customers have handheld usage of less than 1 minute per hour while driving.

Five test groups

The drivers were split into five different arms, each with increasing amounts of intervention. The first group just received education about the problem, such as statistics about state laws that ban phone use while driving, increased crash risks, and recommendations to use hands-free options like a phone mount or casting interface instead.

The second arm received the educational materials and a free phone mount with the message “Driving? Park your phone here.” The authors were particularly interested to see whether this arm worked, given the relatively low-cost and one-time nature of this intervention.

The third arm received both educational materials and the mount, but the participants were also asked to commit in writing to reducing their phone use while driving. The researchers informed these participants about their baseline phone use while driving and then gave them weekly goals to reduce their phone use to below 1 minute per hour over the course of the 10-week study. This arm also got regular tips on helpful habits, like mindfulness reminders, encouraging prompts, or using a phone’s “do not disturb” mode while driving.

Arm four included all the same interventions as arm three but added competitive gamification as well. Each Monday evening during the 10-week trial, the participants in arm four received a message with their handheld usage goal for the coming week and whether they met the previous week’s goal. Points were awarded for meeting the goal and were taken away for backsliding. Additionally, participants with similar baseline usage were grouped together in tens to form leaderboards so individuals could compete against (anonymized) peers.

Finally, arm five included the same interventions as arm four and added a financial incentive. Participants who scored enough points over the course of the 10-week study shared a $2,000 prize, each taking home $15.63 in the end. This arm was also told they would earn $5 for finishing at the head of the weekly leaderboard, which displayed a “total winnings” column in this arm.

What worked?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the interventions in groups one, two, or three resulted in those participants significantly reducing their handheld use while driving. But the drivers in arm four had a 20.5 percent reduction in the amount of handheld usage while driving during the study.

What’s more, this effect persisted throughout the rest of the Progressive Snapshot period (a variable-length post-intervention period lasting 25–65 days) following the end of the 10-week study, with this arm still showing 16.2 percent less handheld usage compared to the control.

Paying drivers on top of competitive gamification was the most effective way to get them to put down their phones. This group reduced its handheld usage by 27.6 percent, or 89 seconds/hour, compared to the control. That reduction was maintained at the same level throughout the post-intervention period for this arm.

Gamification has already been adopted to varying degrees of success by automakers and their UI designers to try to encourage hybrid and EV drivers to be more efficient. So it’s not entirely surprising to see the same approach can work to modify other types of driving behavior. It’s even possible that insurance companies could start financially incentivizing drivers to behave better, assuming prizes cost less than the amount saved by paying for fewer crashes and claims.

PNAS, 2024. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2320603121  (About DOIs).

Gamification gets drivers to put down their phones, study finds Read More »