I originally created this blog to promote the development of technologies to help put an end to texting while driving and distracted driving, but recently I’ve been having second thoughts. After reading several posts at The Safe Driver I’ve begun to wonder if technology is really going to help the problem. Some recent articles have suggested that hands-free technology may be more distracting than we think. If you think about it for a second, anything that takes our full attention away from the road – be it a Bluetooth headset or a phone – is going to effect our capacity to drive. In previous blogs I have suggested technology can make it possible to stay connected on the road but is this such a good idea? It may be the case that any technology no matter how great will take our full attention away from the road and therefore be only contributing to the problem.
On the other hand, wouldn’t it be great to just have the progress that less people are taking their eyes off the road completely to look at their phones? If they can dictate a response to their phone’s notification, keeping their eyes on the road at all times, is this no less distracted than checking the speedometer to make sure your under the speed limit? Accidents can take a split second and until the cars are driving themselves, can humans really be expected to be paying attention 100% of the time? Even the safest driver in the world is still human and open to a split-second of faded attention.
In my research of distracted driving it appears to me that the majority of people have unrealistic and extreme views of how to solve the “epidemic” of texting while driving. We can’t expect young people to text all their friends before they’re about to drive or install apps that are going to lock them out from their phone when it’s in motion. So what do we do, give up? No. I think more research needs to go into the behaviour of people driving distracted and offer better alternatives, that may not be perfect but are far more safer than taking your eyes off the road and typing 140 characters.