title: Driver Compensation: Impairment or Improvement?
abstract: Strayer et al.'s conclusion that their "cognitive distraction scale" for auditory-vocal tasks indicates "significant impairments to driving" is not supported by their data. Additional analysis demonstrates that slower brake reaction times during auditory-vocal tasks were fully compensated for by longer following distances to the lead car. Naturalistic driving data demonstrate that cellular conversation decreases crash risk, the opposite of the article's assumption. Hence, the scale's internal and external validities for indicating driving impairment are highly questionable.
authors.affiliation: Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan richardyoung9@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Young
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D001288:Attention; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: accidents; aggressive and risky driving; attentional processes; cognition; computer systems; displays and controls; distraction; distractions and interruptions; dual task; human error; human-computer interaction; interface evaluation; mental workload; risk assessment; speech user interfaces (sui); surface transportation; task switching; time sharing; usability/acceptance measurement and research