Distracted Driving Behaviors and Beliefs among Older Adults

The Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2014

Distracted driving attributable to the performance of secondary tasks is a major cause of motor vehicle crashes both among teenagers who are novice drivers and among adults who are experienced drivers.

Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2012

Automobile driving is a safety-critical real-world example of multitasking. A variety of roadway and in-vehicle distracter tasks create information processing loads that compete for the neural resources needed to drive safely. Drivers with mind and brain aging may be particularly susceptible to distraction due to waning cognitive resources and control over attention. This study examined distracted driving performance in an instrumented vehicle (IV) in 86 elderly (mean = 72.5 years, SD = 5.0 years) and 51 middle-aged drivers (mean = 53.7 years, SD = 9.3 year) under a concurrent auditory-verbal processing load created by the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT). Compared to baseline (no-task) driving performance, distraction was associated with reduced steering control in both groups, with middle-aged drivers showing a greater increase in steering variability. The elderly drove slower and showed decreased speed variability during distraction compared to middle-aged drivers. They also tended to "freeze up", spending significantly more time holding the gas pedal steady, another tactic that may mitigate time pressured integration and control of information, thereby freeing mental resources to maintain situation awareness. While 39% of elderly and 43% of middle-aged drivers committed significantly more driving safety errors during distraction, 28% and 18%, respectively, actually improved, compatible with allocation of attention resources to safety critical tasks under a cognitive load.

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2017

The present research investigated the proportion of drivers that engage in a wide range of observable and unobservable driving distractions, along with a number of variables associated with driver distraction. A total of 426 semi-structured interviews were performed, with the results weighed according to the proportion of driver licences among city residents of each gender and age group (18-24, 25-44, 45-64, and 65+). Drivers were most inclined to think about phone-related activities when asked about driving distractions, although the vast majority also recognised that a wide variety of other activities can be regarded as distractions. Drivers were aware of the ban on handheld mobile phone activities, but their knowledge of the law was less accurate in relation to other illegal activities, such as manipulating a SatNav while driving. Almost 90% of participants reported engaging in distractions while driving, such as: looking at something outside the vehicle, thinking about things unrelated to the driving task and manipulating the audio entertainment system. The figures for text messaging, having a handheld or hands-free conversation were also relatively high (43.7%, 32.2%, and 25.4%, respectively). Texting while driving was perceived to be the most dangerous secondary activity, followed by having a handheld conversation, with significant differences between distractions. Further, hands-free conversations were perceived to be significantly less risky than handheld conversations. Perceived descriptive norms consistently predicted

International journal of epidemiology, 2016

Driver distraction is a major contributing factor to crashes, which are the leading cause of death for the US population under 35 years of age. The prevalence of secondary-task engagement and its impacts on distraction and crashes may vary substantially by driver age. Driving performance and behaviour data were collected continuously using multiple cameras and sensors in situ for 3542 participant drivers recruited for up to 3 years for the Second Strategic Highway Research Program Naturalistic Driving Study. Secondary-task engagement at the onset of crashes and during normal driving segments was identified from videos. A case-cohort approach was used to estimate the crash odds ratios associated with, and the prevalence of, secondary tasks for four age groups: 16-20, 21-29, 30-64 and 65-98 years of age. Only severe crashes (property damage and higher severity) were included in the analysis. Secondary-task-induced distraction posed a consistently higher threat for drivers younger than...

Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2013

Objective: In this study, we aimed to quantify and compare performance of middle-aged and older drivers during a naturalistic distraction paradigm (visual search for roadside targets) and to predict older drivers' performance given functioning in visual, motor, and cognitive domains.

Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal

While we know that using the telephone when driving increases the risk of accidents and that 18 to 24 year-olds are a fringe of the population that is particularly affected by fatal accidents on the road, we lack information concerning the use of the mobile phone in this age group. This study carried out with 208 young drivers aims to gather data, analyses their behavior at the wheel with the mobile plus their beliefs and awareness of risk. Three contexts are focused on: stopping at the red light, driving during the rush hour and highways. The findings highlight the importance of messaging and the influence of the context on the use of the mobile. We observe an inverse effect between the speed and messaging. While young people declare they are aware of certain risks, it concerns more the risks penalties and accordingly they appear to be impervious to road safety campaigns concerning the mobile phone behind the wheel. On this subject few major differences are to be found between male and female drivers and between very young and young drivers. The use of the mobile while driving among 18 to 24year-olds therefore presents universal characteristics of use from moment or the driver (male or female) is a little more experimented Keywords: Young drivers; risks on the road; the use of the mobile while driving;

Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2004

Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2005

2013

The 2012 National Survey on Distracted Driving Attitudes and Behaviors (NSDDAB) is the second in a series of surveys on distracted driving that have provided data to help further the understanding of driving behavior and to contribute to the development of countermeasures and interventions to reduce distracted driving on the Nation’s roadways. Like the previous 2010 study, this survey yields national estimates of behavior and attitudes toward distracted driving in the United States. The present study differs from the earlier study in that it developed and used a driver typology based on the pattern of responses across multiple distracted driving behavior questions. Cluster analysis identified two distinct groups of drivers with similar overall behavioral tendencies and, among those categorized, 33% are distraction-prone and 67% are distraction-averse. Driver type is a powerful predictor of norms and attitudes towards distracted driving behavior and sanctions for distracted driving. ...

2000

Although many studies have documented the performance decrements associated with driver distractions, few have examined drivers' awareness of these distraction effects. The current study purports to measure how wellcalibrated drivers are with respect to their own performance when distracted. Forty drivers completed a series of tasks on a hand-held or hands-free cell phone while driving an instrumented vehicle around a closed test track. Subjective estimates of performance decrements were recorded and compared to actual decrements observed on multiple measures of driving performance. Although their driving performance suffered in dual-task conditions, drivers were generally not well-calibrated to the magnitude of the distraction effects (r = -.38 to .16). In some cases, estimates of distraction were opposite of the observed effects (i.e., smaller estimates of distraction corresponded to larger performance deficits). There were some age and gender differences. We discuss the implications of these findings for potential mitigation strategies for distracted driving.