Study Says You Are Not Solving The Distracted Driving Problem By Talking Handsfree

They already came for your cell phone, but a new study on distracted driving could be the spark legislators are looking for to take away your hands-free calling.

Keeping your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road means nothing if your brain is busy visualizing something else, say researchers at Britain’s University of Sussex. Their study, published in the journal Transportation Research, showed that hands-free motorists can miss seeing objects right in front of them, especially when they’re not just pretending to listen to the other person.

Having a conversation while driving creates an epic battle inside the brain, with reality and imagination duking it out for dominance, the study found.

cidflekken - 6/14/2016 6:03:47 PM

+2 Boost

So, every car needs to come with a muzzle for every passenger so no one talks in the car. Problem solved.

Car4life1 - 6/14/2016 7:32:45 PM

+2 Boost

It's kind of hilarious I feel like there was once a time when people actually got into a car and the first priority was to drive the car, now it almost seems like safely driving a vehicle is strangely last on the priority list for new drivers, replaced with texting, posting, liking, snapchatting, and wifi....

MDarringer - 6/14/2016 9:01:37 PM

0 Boost

I'm an anomaly in the connected-at-all-times generation. I never text and drive. RARELY do I talk and drive because I know cognitively that while the human brain can multitask, it devotes the majority of its attention to the dominant attention getter. Thus, talking hands free is brain off the road.

Chatter within the car is equally "brain off the road" behavior.