Why multitasking while driving is quickly overwhelming and many distractions get in the way of safe driving, even at relatively low speed.
Who hasn’t been in this situation? A brief lapse of attention at the wheel, an unexpected event, a scare… even without consequences. Yet, according to several studies, inattention and distraction are now among the leading causes of road accidents. We often forget that driving requires full attention.
Drivers need to spot a pedestrian crossing, recognise that someone intends to cross, and react in time to stop the vehicle, for instance. Even if driving seems easy and recognising a pedestrian crossing seems simple, our cognitive abilities – perceiving, understanding, and deciding at the right moment – must remain fully engaged. In the event of imminent danger, any distraction affecting our auditory, visual, cognitive or motor skills significantly increases the risk of an accident.
Many activities incompatible with driving quickly divert our attention:
- Auditory distractions: loud music, children screaming in the back… all of this disrupts our auditory perception.
- Visual distractions: looking out the window for an extended period, looking back at children or pets, picking up an object from the floor… Reading or writing a message on your phone takes your eyes off the road for several seconds. The same goes for using complex multimedia systems or entering an address into a GPS. At 50 km/h, three seconds of inattention is equivalent to 42 meters without looking at the road.
- Cognitive distraction: this is one of the most dangerous types of obstacles. Our thoughts wander and important information goes unnoticed. This includes prolonged conversations with passengers or on the phone (even hands-free), emotions such as anger, personal reflections, daydreaming, eating or drinking, reading or writing messages, or operating complex systems.
- Motor distraction: manipulating a phone, the radio, GPS, cleaning the windshield, searching for an object, or eating… all of these take your hands off the wheel, reducing your ability to react in an emergency.
A driver can be subject to one or more of these distractions at the same time. Logically, the more distractions there are, the more our attention decreases. A typical example is texting while driving. In a recent ACL survey of 6,298 people, 17% said they sometimes write messages while driving, and 5% do so often. Additionally, 13% sometimes browse the Internet while driving, and 5% do so frequently.
In such cases, the distraction is triple:
- Motor, because you tap the screen and hold the device.
- Cognitive, because your thoughts drift away from driving, especially if the message is emotionally charged.
- Visual, because your eyes leave the road.
In this situation, the brain can no longer make decisions appropriate to the circumstances or evaluate dangers objectively.
Though modern driver assistance systems enhance safety, some drivers might be under the false impression that they navigate with automated driving. A certain routine sets in, and on the highway, boredom may begin to appear. This leads some to believe they can perform other tasks while driving – which is rarely the case.
When performing two activities at once, the brain often relegates one to the background. Multitasking is overrated: in reality, our concentration drops quickly when facing successive tasks. A significant side effect is that we no longer distinguish essential information from the irrelevant. Selective inattention can even make us blind to our environment. This means that even though voice commands or hands-free systems reduce visual distraction, they impact the driver’s cognitive concentration.
To properly manage all tasks related to driving, it is essential to keep focus on the road. This means not letting yourself be distracted by the radio, GPS, multimedia systems, or your smartphone. While this may seem obvious in theory, it is all too often neglected in practice.
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