NEW YORK-To get a better idea of the impact of cellular phone use while driving, tap the World Wide Web, but please don’t do it while your vehicle is in motion, even if you do have Internet access via your mobile handset.
“To see how you can minimize your risks, spend a few minutes to take a test and get a customized assessment of how your driving may be affected. Measure it. Manage it. It’s in your control,” says the insweb.com site.
InsWeb Corp., San Mateo, Calif., manages the site, which also includes links to a variety of research projects, legislative initiatives and other information related to wireless phone use by drivers. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, Washington, D.C., provided information to the Web site about minimizing risks and safe driving tips, but it was not involved in developing or reviewing the test, said Jeffrey Nelson, CTIA director of communications. The company said its Web site had more than 1 million “unique” visitors during the first six months of this year.
InsWeb said its “marketplace participants write more the 50 percent of all automobile and homeowners policies in the United States.”
Nationwide Insurance, one of the largest insurers in the country, AMS Services, a consortium of leading insurance companies, and Century Fund, a Boston investment fund have financial investments in InsWeb, InsWeb said.
According to its interactive test, a 46-year-old person driving 65 mph under “normal road conditions” while using the key pad on a wireless phone or engaged in business negotiations or problem solving on that phone should consider these possibilities. His or her reaction time to road hazards may increase by up to 0.8 seconds and vehicle stopping distance by 80 feet.
That same driver going at the same speed under normal conditions while dialing digits on the cell phone may expect a 0.9 second additional delay in response time to a road hazard. The stopping distance could increase by 80 feet.
The 46-year-old traveling at 65 mph under normal driving conditions while engaged in social conversation on a wireless phone may experience a 0.4 second additional delay in road hazard response time and a 32-foot increase in stopping distance.
The test, which allows its takers to vary age, driving speed and phone usage inputs, is based on reaction delay data obtained from a 1990 study, “The Effect of Cellular Phone Use upon Driver Attention.” James and A. Scott McKnight conducted the study for the National Public Services Research Institute, Landover, Md., under a grant from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
“We can’t comment on their methodology. The study was based on research done in 1990, and there have been a lot of changes since then, (notably) more widespread availability of hands-free options,” said CTIA’s Nelson.
“However, increasing awareness of possible conflicts is clearly an important first step because it gives people the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions.”
“In the study, 151 subjects observed a 25-minute video driving sequence containing 47 situations to which drivers [were] expected to respond by manipulation of the vehicle’s controls,” a summary of the findings said.
The 47 situations comprised 18 involving other vehicles, 10 related to road configuration, four each involving route changes or pedestrians or animals, three each involving road sight limitations, roadside construction and traffic control signals and two related to road surface conditions.
“Each situation occurred equally often under five conditions of distraction: placing a cellular phone call, carrying on a simple … phone conversation, carrying on a complex … conversation, tuning a radio (included to provide a familiar benchmark) and none of the preceding distractions,” the study summary said.
Drivers in the 50-80 age group were at least twice as likely as younger drivers to increase their response time to traffic situations when they were dialing out on the cell phone. However, older drivers were “considerably less” distracted by radio tuning than the youngest drivers, in the 17-25 age group.
For all age groups, “relative increase in chances of a highway-traffic situation going unnoticed ranged from approximately 20 percent for placing a call and during simple conversations to 29 percent for complex conversations,” the study said.
“Prior experience with cellular phones appeared unrelated to the degree of distraction involved in [their use],” the study said.
