jamescv7 said:
Regarding about "driver distraction"
During some incoming calls, a better solution of using bluetooth headset while driving so less trouble will happen since your still concentrating while having conversation.
Actually, you're still distracted while having a conversation using a hands free cell phone. It's the
conversation that is the problem, not the act of holding a phone to your ear.
While having a conversation, you're basically driving on auto-pilot. Your brain just isn't capable of dealing with all of the data it is being presented with. In fact, as strange as it may sound,
anything unexpected while your concentration is elsewhere will most likely be invisible to your conscious mind. It is a condition known as
inattentional blindness.
There is a pretty famous psychological experiment that proves this. It's called the Invisible Gorilla.
In this experiment, you are shown a video. In this video, six people are playing basketball. Three are in white shirts, and three are in black. You are asked to keep track of how many passes are made by the white shirts. While this is going on, a person in a gorilla suit walks in, faces the camera, pounds its chest and walks back off. It is onscreen for a total of nine seconds. Surprisingly, 50% of the people who take this test
do not see the gorilla! 50%!!!
Now if you explain what is to happen in the test, everybody is sure they will see the gorilla, but the facts prove otherwise.
There's a pretty fascinating book about our perceptions, called
The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
There are other pretty surprising tests that have been done. Such as those in the wiki article I linked to. People walking while talking on a cell phone or listening to an .mp3 player aren't very likely to see a clown on a unicycle ride past!
Basically, even while we think we're concentrating on driving, we have an extremely hard time seeing things that we do not expect to see. I'm sure you've heard more than one reported accident that one or the other drivers states that they didn't see the other car, or the car seemed to appear out of nowhere. This is due to inattentional blindness. It doesn't mean they aren't a good driver, just that they're human.
So why the increase in accidents while using a cell phone, when people have been having conversations with passengers for decades?
When you have a passenger, chances are pretty good that they're also watching the road. They may see something coming that the driver missed.
With a cell phone conversation, these often happen while the driver is alone in the car. No other set of eyes to watch out for impending doom.
Hmmm... Sorry for the diatribe, but I read the book I mention above a short while ago, so all of this is pretty fresh in my mind.
