title: A comparison of the effect of mobile phone use and alcohol consumption on driving simulation performance.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The present study compared the effects of a variety of mobile phone usage conditions to different levels of alcohol intoxication on simulated driving performance and psychomotor vigilance.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twelve healthy volunteers participated in a crossover design in which each participant completed a simulated driving task on 2 days, separated by a 1-week washout period. On the mobile phone day, participants performed the simulated driving task under each of 4 conditions: no phone usage, a hands-free naturalistic conversation, a hands-free cognitively demanding conversation, and texting. On the alcohol day, participants performed the simulated driving task at four different blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels: 0.00, 0.04, 0.07, and 0.10. Driving performance was assessed by variables including time within target speed range, time spent speeding, braking reaction time, speed deviation, and lateral lane position deviation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the BAC 0.07 and 0.10 alcohol conditions, participants spent less time in the target speed range and more time speeding and took longer to brake in the BAC 0.04, 0.07, and 0.10 than in the BAC 0.00 condition. In the mobile phone condition, participants took longer to brake in the natural hands-free conversation, cognitively demanding hands-free conversation and texting conditions and spent less time in the target speed range and more time speeding in the cognitively demanding, hands-free conversation, and texting conditions. When comparing the 2 conditions, the naturalistic conversation was comparable to the legally permissible BAC level (0.04), and the cognitively demanding and texting conversations were similar to the BAC 0.07 to 0.10 results.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of the current laboratory study suggest that very simple conversations on a mobile phone may not represent a significant driving risk (compared to legally permissible BAC levels), whereas cognitively demanding, hands-free conversation, and particularly texting represent significant risks to driving.
authors.affiliation: Brain Sciences Institute, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Sumie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.forename: Rodney J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Croft
authors.forename: Melinda L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Mark E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Howard
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: McKenzie
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects*; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology*; D040421:Cell Phone; D003198:Computer Simulation; D018592:Cross-Over Studies; D000431:Ethanol / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol