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With ownership of smart phones on the rise, there’s more temptation than ever to respond to a text or update your Facebook profile on the move. So Which? decided to find out just how distracting it is to text while driving.
We asked three researchers, aged in their 20s, 30s and 40s, to drive in a simulator under five different conditions: without distraction, talking hands-free on a mobile, taking on a handheld phone, texting, and driving at the legal alcohol limit – as this is also known to impair reaction times.
Watch our driving simulator research video
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Video transcript
We’ve all been stuck behind someonedriving erratically, swerving outof their lane or inexplicably slowing down.I can guarantee that everytime it happens to me, whenI get to see the driver they’veeither got their phone stuck totheir ear or they’ve gottheir head down texting, but justhow dangerous is it driving and using a mobile phone?
And is it worse than drink driving?We went to the Transport Research Laboratory in Berkshire to find out.We did four different tests ina simulator they were: talkinghands free, talking on ahand held mobile, texting, anddriving at the legal alcohol limit.Before we started the test We did a control run without distractions.
The simulator had three cameras watchingthe driver to see howmuch time they spent looking atthe road and how quick their reactions were.The cameras were hooked up toa control room where TRL’sexperts recorded each drivers performance.So, let’s see how we got on.It was significantly harder to drive, definitely.
Very noticeably much harder todrive and keep on doingeverything without getting distracted.I found it really difficultbecause I was also trying toconcentrate on the road and therewere hazards such as cars pulling out,braking suddenly also hadto try to keep the carin the center of thelane when going around cornersand generally it wasjust a lot to concentrate on I did manage to stay on the road.
Even so, answering questions andgenerally conversing on thephone it was alot more difficult than simply driving.I tried to do the headlight thingwhen I saw the red barand trying to change lanes on motorwayas well, doing all that and talk on the phone was really quite difficult.Difficult to maintain concentrationon the road while speakinginto the phone and gettingaccurate answers as well.
I found that difficult, but Towards theend I felt myself speeding upas well without realizing while I was there, having the conversation on the phone.I felt like I certainly hadto concentrate more thanwhen I had to solve thosemental arithmetic problems that Ihad while talking on thehands free, but I’m sureit hasn’t impaired my reaction times
Really, it’s much more difficult togo round corners and spot Red barsthat meant you were supposed to flash your headlightsso much slower doing both of those things. One ofthe bends that we were supposedto take constant 40 miles an hour.I’ve just spun the carout, and crashed, which,even after a considerable amount of alcohol.I didn’t do.I definitely found it more difficultwhen I was texting, I’d swerveout in the lanes a couple oftimes and notice my speed increase, actually, as well.
and it was really, really difficult.Even trying to text one handed.It was really difficult tryingto keep an eye onthe road as well.You just I just wasn’t paying any attention to the road at all while I was texting.When driving at the legal alcohollimit we experience an 11% reduction in attention.
While using a mobile, handheld and hands free.This raised to a nineteen percentdrop in attention when testingWhen texting this raised to a staggering seventy nine percent drop in attention.This was the only test when somebody actually crashed the car.Road deaths were upby nearly three percent in 2011.It’s the first they’ve gone up in nearly a decade.
One reason for this couldbe the growing number of peopleusing mobile phones while driving.snapshot research shows justhow dangerous it can be todrive while using a hand held mobile phone.We think that tougher actionneeds to be taken by the police and the government.Have your say by clicking thelink below
Texting causes huge drop in attention
The results were alarming: the researchers experienced an 11% level of impairment while at the legal alcohol limit, a 19% reduction in attention to the road while using a handheld and hands-free mobile, and a staggering 79% reduction in attention while texting. One of our researchers even veered off the virtual road and crashed while sending a text.
To understand what’s being done to reduce the number of phone-related accidents on real roads, Which? contacted each of the UK’s 52 police authorities.
We asked each to tell us how many mobile phone use offences it had recorded in the past five years and how the offences had been resolved. We found that most offenders had paid a fixed penalty fine, and that only 11 of the 52 police forces offered any kind of awareness course for those caught using a handheld mobile.
Tougher action should be taken
Which? believes that tougher action needs to be taken by the police and government, and we have shared our findings with the Department for Transport and the charity Brake, which campaigns on road safety issues.