Mobile phones

Anything that doesn't fit elsewhere - doesn't have to be AD related.
Astraist
Posts: 239
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:41 pm

Re: Mobile phones

Postby Astraist » Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:37 pm

exportmanuk wrote:As for drinking from a bottle as its in front of your face you cant see where you are going. Use a straw. Bloody cagers :racing:


You still run the risk of aspirating whatever it is you are drinking because of a surprise or a bump. Drinking while driving is to be limited to when the vehicle is stationary.
Last edited by Astraist on Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

martine
Posts: 1016
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 8:26 am
Location: Bristol
Contact:

Re: Mobile phones

Postby martine » Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:38 pm

Rolyan wrote:...Firstly, I can't remember what the studies were or where they were published...

Links to 2 such studies are in posts earlier in this thread...

Personally I came to the conclusion many years ago (before the law) that:
a) hands-free use was significantly distracting me and
b) nothing in a call was as important as concentrating on driving.

I would never forgive myself if, during a call, I was involved in an RTC esp. if someone was injured - I'd be forever wondering...

PS. I don't need a phone distraction to have an RTC - I'm quite capable of having one without :shock:
Martin - Bristol Advanced Motorists: IMI National Observer, Group Secretary, Masters (dist), DSA: ADI, Fleet, RoSPA (Dip)

User avatar
GTR1400MAN
Posts: 2209
Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2016 12:23 pm

Re: Mobile phones

Postby GTR1400MAN » Mon Nov 21, 2016 3:20 pm

I'll just throw this into the mix.

I don't listen to music while riding my motorcycle but I do in my car.

Why? I found it affected my riding such that I rode in the style of the music. As I listen to a lot of hard rock you can imagine that was not a positive influence to my safety bubble/margins or my concentration.

Strangely the same thing doesn't happen in the car.
Mike Roberts - Now riding a Triumph Explorer XRT. My username comes from my 50K miles on a Kawasaki 1400GTR, after many years on Hondas of various shapes and styles. - https://tinyurl.com/mikerobertsonyoutube

User avatar
Horse
Posts: 3558
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 9:20 am

Re: Mobile phones

Postby Horse » Mon Nov 21, 2016 4:14 pm

martine wrote: Personally I came to the conclusion many years ago (before the law) that . . .


What convinced me was helping a mate who, at the time, was doing a psychology PhD.

He was investigating possibilities for assessing the effect of brain injury on perception and driving ability. He needed a number of 'neuro-typicals' as his control group.

This particular task involved 'driving', on a laptop, through a simple environment of blocks. Along the way, there were things popping up on the screen which we had to react to. My typical reaction time was about 0.4s.

The next stage was to repeat the drive, also listen through headphones to a recorded sequence of random letters being read out. Then, as well as reacting to the on-screen tasks, react by saying 'yes' every time the audio said 'S'.

My reaction time dropped to 2s.

I wasn't planning on using a phone while driving anyway, but that clinched it.
Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.

Matt1962
Posts: 108
Joined: Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:36 am

Re: Mobile phones

Postby Matt1962 » Mon Nov 21, 2016 5:22 pm

Horse wrote:
martine wrote: Personally I came to the conclusion many years ago (before the law) that . . .


What convinced me was helping a mate who, at the time, was doing a psychology PhD.

He was investigating possibilities for assessing the effect of brain injury on perception and driving ability. He needed a number of 'neuro-typicals' as his control group.

This particular task involved 'driving', on a laptop, through a simple environment of blocks. Along the way, there were things popping up on the screen which we had to react to. My typical reaction time was about 0.4s.

The next stage was to repeat the drive, also listen through headphones to a recorded sequence of random letters being read out. Then, as well as reacting to the on-screen tasks, react by saying 'yes' every time the audio said 'S'.

My reaction time dropped to 2s.

I wasn't planning on using a phone while driving anyway, but that clinched it.


But...this seems to me to be far away from any sort of hands free call I have ever received. Even going back to the days of (not hands free ;)) radio transmitters in some of the old farm land rovers or tractors I used to drive, calls are and were just about imparting simple information; a work colleague telling me about an accident ahead, my wife asking me to pick my daughter up on the way home.
The oft quoted studies all seem to introduce competing thought processes that are far beyond normal usage. This is probably why we don't really see any effect of (what must be) hugely increased phone usage in the accident statistics.

User avatar
Horse
Posts: 3558
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 9:20 am

Re: Mobile phones

Postby Horse » Mon Nov 21, 2016 5:55 pm

Matt1962 wrote:
Horse wrote:
martine wrote: Personally I came to the conclusion many years ago (before the law) that . . .

The next stage was to repeat the drive, also listen through headphones to a recorded sequence of random letters being read out. Then, as well as reacting to the on-screen tasks, react by saying 'yes' every time the audio said 'S'.
My reaction time dropped to 2s.


But...this seems to me to be far away from any sort of hands free call I have ever received.


As I said, it wasn't an experiment about mobile phone use.

But if you can't see any connection between listening, concentrating and answering, and (in a relatively simple example) a potentially catastrophic increase in reaction time, and the implications for listening to and responding to someone on the other end of a phone, then . . . hey-ho . . .
Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.

Matt1962
Posts: 108
Joined: Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:36 am

Re: Mobile phones

Postby Matt1962 » Mon Nov 21, 2016 6:46 pm

Horse wrote:
Matt1962 wrote:
Horse wrote:
martine wrote: Personally I came to the conclusion many years ago (before the law) that . . .

The next stage was to repeat the drive, also listen through headphones to a recorded sequence of random letters being read out. Then, as well as reacting to the on-screen tasks, react by saying 'yes' every time the audio said 'S'.
My reaction time dropped to 2s.


But...this seems to me to be far away from any sort of hands free call I have ever received.


As I said, it wasn't an experiment about mobile phone use.

But if you can't see any connection between listening, concentrating and answering, and (in a relatively simple example) a potentially catastrophic increase in reaction time, and the implications for listening to and responding to someone on the other end of a phone, then . . . hey-ho . . .


Your example is not simple, you effectively have a competition between two tasks and you are trying to do your best at both. This also seems to be the type of scenario chosen for the academic research.
My guess is that this is not the way that most people approach hands free usage. Of course there is distraction, as there is with the radio, satnav, scenery etc.but the actual driving gets a far higher priority.

User avatar
akirk
Posts: 1659
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2015 6:58 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Mobile phones

Postby akirk » Mon Nov 21, 2016 7:13 pm

If I have to change something on the screen in the car - e.g. satnav - responding to it pinging up a message saying traffic ahead, new route found - then my eyes will be off the road for some time, potentially reading what it is saying, looking at both routes, making a decision, choosing another route etc. that is clearly dangerous, but it is not specifically legislated against...

or a phone call can come in, I can answer it without taking my eyes off the road ahead, I can easily reply briefly and finish the call - clearly that is an added distraction over not having a call, no doubt about that - but... how do you judge that against the distraction above? I would say it is less dangerous - and that is why hands-free calling is legal

now the same scenario, but I have to find the phone in my pocket / cubby hole, pick it up, use my fingerprint or password to get in / answer the call etc. - understandably legislated against as it would be eyes off the road and distracting - but how do you compare that against the legally acceptable satnav use described above?

I agree, you want to minimise any form of distraction, but driving without distraction just doesn't happen, yet normally it doesn't lead to chaos / mayhem / destruction - that tends to come from more intense distractions - so we need to not assume that the correct goal is to aim for no distraction, but to aim to minimise it / avoid it, and legislate at a boundary where above that level is clearly, demonstrably not acceptable - currently though we legislate by what is easy to prosecute, not by what is most / least distracting...

Alasdair

User avatar
ChristianAB
Posts: 270
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 9:51 pm

Re: Mobile phones

Postby ChristianAB » Mon Nov 21, 2016 8:59 pm

Maybe the problem is not the phone, hands-free or not, or even the conversation. Instead, it is our mistrust for other people's ability to make their own decisions in a responsible and reasonable fashion, including with regards to the use a phone on the move.

Personally I am unable to have a simple conversation with a passenger without my driving deteriorating markedly but I know a few people who can multitask well enough that using their phones wouldn't noticeably affect them. The issue is more about whether each one can adapt their behaviour to their own circumstances.
Instead of yet more (costly and/or largely ineffective) enforcement, surely the right approach would be to simply help people make better decisions, by working with them rather than imposing on them more rules and punishments?
Last edited by ChristianAB on Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Silk
Posts: 386
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:24 pm
Location: South Glos.

Re: Mobile phones

Postby Silk » Mon Nov 21, 2016 11:08 pm

ChristianAB wrote:Maybe the problem is not the phone, hands-free or not, or even the conversation. Instead, it is our mistrust for other people's ability to make their own decisions in a responsible and reasonable fashion, including with regards to the use a phone on the move.


Exactly. There's also the problem that just because one person doesn't see the need to do something, in this case use a mobile phone whilst driving, then anyone who does it must be wrong. If your driving only involves commuting to work, going to the shops and the occasional fun drive out with a few like minded individuals, then you'll not understand how it is for those of us who spend a great deal of our time driving on business and value the ability to communicate quickly. Things have moved on since the days of the after-market car-kits with their tinny speakers and audio that would cut in and out. These days we have fully integrated systems that sound much better and are easy to use.

IMO, we should be learning how to accommodate new technology, not just banning it because we don't understand it.

As for the all the "evidence". If you believe that sitting in a mock-up of a car interior looking out at a representation of the driving environment using graphics that would have been laughed at in an amusement arcade in the 1980s, with the occasional dodgy graphic jumping out from the scenery shouting "boo", represents real driving, then there may be something in it. I don't.


Return to “General Chat”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 34 guests