IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2015 - 92

smartphone-style dashboard designs. One might be
tempted to try to articulate a "fourth wave" that could
include the work by Google and others on driverless
cars [19], or cars designed by the computer companies
themselves, like the rumored Apple car [20]. But even
more than the prospect of widespread use of wearable
computing while driving, these potential developments
remain speculative. Sure, the advent of driverless cars
would transform - if not eliminate - the very idea of
distracted driving. But exactly what those cars will look
like, when they'll become available, how liability laws
will be drawn, and in what manner such cars will be
adopted are all issues that remain anyone's guess.
So the questions here are: will novel forms of distraction accompany a driver's use of wearable computing or
smartphone-style dashboard interface? Will these thirdwave connectivity devices retain some of the forms of
driver distraction already seen to be associated with cell
phones, smartphones, and dashboard infotainment? To
answer them we must first review the ways that driver
distraction can be understood.

Will novel forms of distraction
accompany a driver's use of wearable
computing or smartphone-style
dashboard interface?

Driver Distraction: Science, Brains, and Policy
The science of cell-phone-related distracted driving
has been bustling since before the turn of the century. But the empirical investigation of this topic is
something that requires some ingenuity. The subject
matter under investigation is behaviors that are potentially unsafe. Yet of course the studies themselves
cannot introduce participants to any actual dangers.
So researchers respond to this challenge with innovative experimental designs, including test track runs,
driving simulators, and the scrutiny of crash data
and phone records. However, thus far the empirical research has largely addressed only what I have
referred to as the first wave of in-cab connectivity,
namely, handheld texting and handheld and handsfree mobile phone conversation.

Texting
One central finding is that handheld texting is a
substantial form of driver distraction. A recent

92

meta-analysis of empirical studies of texting-whiledriving by Jeff K. Caird and his colleagues differentiated between the tasks of reading texts and
writing them [21]. Although they find the reading task
to be less distracting than the typing, both are found
to have significant detrimental effects on driving performance. As Caird et al. summarize the situation,
"Despite what some drivers may believe about their
ability to multi-task or safely text while driving, the
accumulated evidence thus far from epidemiologic,
observational and experimental research on the safety of texting and driving is negative, unequivocal and
convergent" [21, p. 316].

Hands-Free Phones
A topic that has been subject to significant study is the
comparison of the driver distraction of handheld and
hands-free phones. A remarkable volume of experimental findings point to the same conclusion: handheld and
hands-free cell phone conversation are associated with
the same dangerous level of driving impairment. The
body of empirical research on this topic is large enough
to be the subject of meta-analyses, e.g., [22], [23]. Some
studies indicate that engaging in handheld or hands-free
phone conversation increases crash risk by a factor of
four [22], [23]. As Suzanne P. McAvoy and her colleagues
put it, "A person using a mobile phone while driving is
four times more likely to have a crash that will result
in hospital attendance. Sex, age group, or availability
of a hands-free device did not influence the increased
likelihood of a crash" [25, p. 4]. What's more, drivers
are shown to be unreliable gauges of their own level of
distraction, e.g., [26]-[28]. As David M. Sanbonmatsu
and his colleagues explain, "it appears that the persons
who are most likely to multi-task and most apt to use a
cell phone while driving are those with the most inflated
views of their abilities" [28, p. 6].
In a smaller subtopic of study, the distraction of the
phone is compared to the distraction of conversation
with a passenger. Recent studies on this find phone
conversation to be a much greater source of driving
impairment, e.g., [29], [30]. Reasons for this could
include that passengers may modulate conversation
rate and complexity based on driving conditions in a
way that phone interlocutors do not, and that passengers may actually actively assist in keeping the driver
paying attention to road.

Second Wave Distraction
While research on the driver distraction of communication and computing technology remains focused
on the first wave of developments, exceptions to this
trend are emerging. That is, new studies are beginning
to address the distraction of second wave connectivity

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

∕

December 2015



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