Driving and Texting Performance When Drivers Text Behind the Wheel

Abstract

Texting while driving is a prevalent risky behavior among drivers that causes thousands of fatalities each year. Compared to the attention cell phone conversations while driving is given, texting while driving is still not thoroughly investigated. This article reviews the risks of texting while driving, mutual interference of texting and driving performance and future research questions. More research focusing on texting while driving and technology solutions to reduce its risks is needed.

Full text

Research Article Open Access
He et al., J Ergonomics 2014, S3
http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2165-7556.S3-e001
Editorial Open Access
Ergonomics
J Ergonomics ISSN: 2165-7556 JER, an open access journal
Driver Safety
Keywords: Driver distraction; Cellphone; Texting while driving
Introduction
With the increasing prevalence of smartphones and wearable
devices, texting while driving is becoming an important public safety
hazard [1]. e National Highway and Trac Safety Administration
(NHTSA) reported that 11% of drivers are using cell phones at any one
time [2]. In 2011 surveys, 74.3% to 91% of college students admitted they
text while driving, with 51.8% doing so on a weekly basis [3,4]. According
to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the proportion of
driving fatalities caused by distraction increased from 10.5% in 2005 to
15.8% in 2008, which was partly due to texting while driving [5]. With
new types of cell phones and devices emerging, such as Google Glass and
smart watches, the rate of texting while driving may increase even more.
According to the theory of dual-task performance, if two tasks share
similar resources, performance of either or both tasks will be impaired
when they are performed concurrently. Driving and texting require
the same visual and cognitive resources, thus driving and texting
performance can both be impaired when drivers text behind the wheel.
A mutual interference of texting and driving performance has been
reported [6].
Texting while driving impairs driving performance in various ways.
For example, texting while driving increases hazard response time [7,8],
causes larger variations of lane position [9-12], increases variability of
headway distance [8,13], increases gaze-o-road durations [10,14,15],
causes more collisions [8].
Driving also impairs texting performance [6,13]. In a study by
the research group at Wichita State University, a classic Lane Change
Task (LCT) and a car-following task were used to measure driving
performance; a custom Android application logged the texting
performance. Results showed that texting impaired driving performance
by increasing brake response time and the standard deviation of lane
positions [6,13]. Both the LCT and car-following tasks impaired texting
by reducing the texting speed and increasing the texting errors. e
mean and standard deviation of the time interval between key entries
also increased signicantly. Similarly, another study also reported that
driving impaired concurrent secondary performance, such as language
production and comprehension in a story-retelling task [16].
To better understand these risks, it is important to consider
dierent features and designs of cell phones and their eects on driving
performance, such as cell phone types (a phone with physical keyboard
versus touch screen), hands-free vs. handheld phones, reading versus
writing text messages.
Firstly, the texting performance may vary for keyboard type, such as
a touch screen keyboard or a physical keyboard. Physical keyboards can
provide texters tactical feedback about key entries, thus can potentially
allow experienced texters to keep their eyes on the road longer than
phones with a touch screen interface [17]. One eye-tracking study
showed that touch screen smartphone users tended to produce a larger
number of glances longer than 2s than users of physical keyboard,
though the dierence was not statistically signicant [18].
Secondly, the impact of voice-recognition technology or handsfree
texting is another important question concerning texting while driving.
Several studies have shown the benets of handsfree cell phone use over
handheld cell phone [14]. However, the benet of voice-recognition
technology is not consistently observed [19,20]. A meta-analysis by
Horrey and Wickens [20] has shown the distracting eect of handsfree
and handheld phone use is similar. Whether a handsfree phone can
provide better performance over a handheld phone may depend on the
quality of the voice-recognition technology and duration of the texting
task [12,13].
irdly, dierent components of texting behaviors can potentially
inuence driving performance dierently, such as reading and writing
text messages via either visual, auditory, or verbal modalities [12].
Text-to-speech and voice-recognition technologies may potentially
reduce the amount of visual distraction compared to looking down at a
phone to read messages [21]. A meta-analysis study found that lateral
vehicle control and glances away from the road were less aected by
reading text messages than writing them, however other research has
found that reading and writing text messages almost equally impaired
driving performance [1,12].
Texting while driving is becoming an increasing risk factor on the
road, and the situation is likely to get worse with the rapid increase
of mobile devices. More research should be carried out to promote
our understanding of texting while driving and guide technology
innovation, design, legislation, and driver training.
*Corresponding author: Jibo He, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, 67260,
USA, Tel: 2174173830; E-mail: drhojibo@gmail.com
Received May 27, 2014; Accepted May 28, 2014; Published June 03, 2014
Citation: He J, Choi W, Ellis J (2014) Driving and Texting Performance When
Drivers Text Behind the Wheel. J Ergonomics S3: e001. doi:10.4172/2165-7556.
S3-e001
Copyright: © 2014 He J, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited.
Abstract
Texting while driving is a prevalent risky behavior among drivers that causes thousands of fatalities each
year. Compared to the attention cell phone conversations while driving is given, texting while driving is still not
thoroughly investigated. This article reviews the risks of texting while driving, mutual interference of texting and
driving performance and future research questions. More research focusing on texting while driving and technology
solutions to reduce its risks is needed.
Driving and Texting Performance When Drivers Text Behind the Wheel
Jibo He*, William Choi and Jake Ellis
Department of Psychology, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, 67260, USA

Citation: He J, Choi W, Ellis J (2014) Driving and Texting Performance When Drivers Text Behind the Wheel. J Ergonomics S3: e001. doi:10.4172/2165-
7556.S3-e001
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J Ergonomics ISSN: 2165-7556 JER, an open access journal
Driver Safety
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Citation: He J, Choi W, Ellis J (2014) Driving and Texting Performance When
Drivers Text Behind the Wheel. J Ergonomics S3: e001. doi:10.4172/2165-
7556.S3-e001