Auto-manic: Voice-Activated Mobile Texting No Safer for Drivers Than Typing

Nice try.

Hey, we live in an attention economy. We know that no matter how we do it, getting someone's attention has value precisely because it takes that attention away from someone or something else.

So, it should come as no surprise that the much-hoped-for solution to dont-text-and-drive laws, voice-activated texts, turn out to be no safer for drivers - and those other drivers, pedestrians, cows or buildings in their way.

According to the latest research on the issue, no matter which texting method is used, reaction times were approximately twice as slow as they were for those who were not otherwise distracted. As addicted as people are to their mobiles and their texts, there does not yet appear to be a safe way of texting while driving. The operative question is why we are so obsessed with texts, which are rarely urgent and often inane. One guess is that in a society where human interaction is increasingly rare, we hunger for the validation texting provides. At the same time, through automatic shifting, road engineering and traffic safety laws, we have made driving relatively safe and even boring. Urbanization has contributed to congestion which slows speeds and contributes further to that sense of invulnerability.

The reality is that as long as humans are allowed a modicum of operative influence behind the wheel of heavy, fast machines we may have to accept some behavioral limits, which, come to think of it, is a rather more universal commentary about our sense of entitlement where convenience is concerned. Just as there are natural limits on many types of performance, with even Moore's Law possibly nearing the furthest extension of its reign, so humanity may have to accept that it will never be able to cross over into that magical realm where no effort beyond thought is possible. JL

Ashley Halsey reports in the Washington Post:

It’s every bit as dangerous to speak into a mobile device that translates words into a text message as it is to type one.

It had appeared that technology might have solved a problem of its own creation when voice-
activated texting came along so that drivers could keep their eyes on the road. Not so, says the first major study of the subject.
“It didn’t really matter which texting method you were using, your reaction times were twice as slow and your eyes were on the road much less often,” said Christine Yager, who did the research for the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University.
With Americans swapping 6.1 billion text messages every day, several mobile-application developers came up with voice-to-text software. Yager tested two developed for the popular iPhone and Android devices as drivers performed tests on a closed course.
“We were using a tracker, measuring how often they looked at the roadway and how long it took the driver to complete each text-messaging task that we asked them to do, and we also were looking at how long it took them to respond to that light that turned on periodically,” she said.
The finding: Voice-to-text applications “do not increase driver safety compared to manual texting.”
“We aren’t surprised,” said Jonathan Adkins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. “Anything that takes the driver’s concentration away from driving is a potential distraction. Our message to drivers is to hold off on sending a text until the car is parked.”
Using a hand-held device to tap out a text message while driving has been banned in the District and 39 states, including Virginia and Maryland. The District, Maryland and nine other states also prohibit use of hand-held devices for almost all purposes.
In a survey released this year, almost 35 percent of drivers told the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that they had recently read text messages or e-mail while driving, and 26 percent said they had sent a text message.
About 3,300 people a year die in crashes attributed to distracted driving, with 387,000 more injured in 2011, federal data show.
For the study, Yager recruited people who were familiar with sending and receiving texts, and some of them already were using voice-to-text applications.
“One of the common comments was that they felt an inclination to look down at the screen to see if it heard them correctly, so that could be one possible explanation of why they were not looking at the roadway more frequently,” Yager said.
She said drivers said they felt safer when using voice-activated texting than when entering messages on a keyboard.
“Perhaps it is because they view it as safer and therefore it must be, but still they have this inclination to look down at the screen,” she said. “We found that their driving performance suffered equally with both methods.”
As has been proven in studies of cellphone conversations, Yager said drivers engaged in any form of texting were distracted by the communication effort.
“Whether you’re talking on the cellphone, whether you’re trying to send a message, whether you’re typing it with your hand, speaking it, driving is not a simple, mindless task,” she said. “So any of these types of activities that are not about driving have the potential of seriously taking your mind off what you’re doing in operating that vehicle.”