Guidelines for gadgets

The US Department of Transportation (DoT) has started on a campaign encouraging passenger car makers to find ways of cutting the distraction risk posed by in-car gizmos.

With the rise in connectivity for communications, entertainment, information gathering and navigation devices, the DoT and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have devoted increasing scrutiny to devices drawing driver attention away from essential driving functions.

With the Obama administration looking to earmark US$330 million over six years for the purpose on a broad scale, the department has issued a draft set of guidelines recommending installation and operational criteria for factory-fitted devices drawing eyes off the road and hands off the wheel.

The proposal comes in response to five straight years of data showing that 17 per cent of reported crashes causing fatalities, injuries and property damage involved distraction.

The guidelines are issued in three phases. Phase 1 centres on factory-fitted equipment operated by the driver ‘through visual-manual means’ – ie the driver twiddles knobs and watches for visual feedback.

Here, the proposed distraction guidelines include recommendations to simplify and speed up the setting of the device, restrict its demands to a single hand, limit the time the driver’s eyes have to leave the road and get rid of unnecessary visual feedback.

The guidelines also recommend disabling – at least until the vehicle is stopped with the gear lever in Park – a number of particularly culpable and inessential functions. They include visual-manual text messaging, web and social media browsing, entering sat-nav destinations and dialling phone numbers of ten digits or more, and limiting on-screen text not related to driving to 30 characters.

Phase I has been published in the Federal Register, inviting public input over the next 60 days. Final guidelines will be issued after the agency reviews and analyses and responds to public input.

Phase 2 will extend the guidelines to cover devices and systems not built in, like smartphones, tablets and aftermarket sat-navs.

Further along, Phase 3 looks to address voice-activated controls to further minimize distraction in factory-installed, aftermarket, and portable devices.

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