Text-driving not so bad — Ford

Crash statistics and research is beginning to show that talking on the phone and texting while driving may not be as dangerous as we’ve been told, claims Ford Senior Technical Leader for Human Machine Interface, Jeff Greenberg.

He’s not suggesting that using your handheld phone while driving is good. Not at all. Talking on the phone and reading texts is distracting, he confirms.

"People do miss stop signs; they do miss navigation signs; they drive past their exits. They go slow because they shed tasks and they don’t change lanes,” says Greenberg.

“We see these behaviours [while driving] and see people doing things that we wish they weren’t doing that on the road. But, when we look at the actual crash statistics, it doesn’t support this notion that there’s an epidemic,” he says. “Yes, there is an issue and there is a problem that we need to solve.”

Considering the high percentage of drivers who use their phones while driving, there hasn’t been an equally high increase in crashes. Greenberg suggests the reason may be because experienced drivers choose low-risk moments when they can be briefly distracted while driving.

The research does reinforce the driving adage: eyes on the road at all times. Do that one simple thing, and as controversial as it sounds, using your phone may not be as dangerous as initially thought.

“Visual demand is really important while driving. There is nothing that supports the idea that you can look at your phone and stay safe,” he stresses.

“But, if your eyes are on the road, you generally will respond – really almost subconsciously – to events,” says Greenberg. “Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road is really not a slogan.”

“We have a social education problem as much as a technology and a design problem,” he adds. “Some of this really is about teaching people to adopt a more socially responsible norm for behaviour [behind the wheel].”

Should drivers be allowed to use their phone and text while driving, and does police enforcement of anti-texting laws actually reduce crash rates? According to Greenberg who is referencing crash data, it has been very hard to find a correlation between strict police enforcement of anti-texting laws and reduced crash rates.

However, Greenberg cautions that the data from research done and data collected by several insurance companies is pretty weak.

Greenberg openly promotes the use of hands-free, voice-activated technology as a much safer alternative to hand-held phones. Anything that distracts a driver’s attention from the road increases the risk of an incident, he says – and that includes putting on makeup or eating a cheeseburger.