A new law sees driving while talking on a hands-free mobile phone illegal. Ed Ewing finds out why
January 27 2007
Guardian Unlimited
IN MY WING mirror I see a Range Rover sweeping up on the inside. I am at 70mph so it must be hurtling along. Ahead of me the traffic is quite thick, and something else is zooming up on my outside. I am feeling boxed in, a bit sweaty. Suddenly, my passenger, the photographer, opens the door. "What are you doing?!" I shout, trying to keep my eyes on the road and a grip on the wheel as we swerve across lanes, the car pitching up and down as I brake. "Get back inside!"
"What?" she says. What indeed. We are not on the motorway after all, we are in a simulator on what looks like a mini film-set at the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Bracknell, Berkshire. I am in a five speed Honda Civic, surrounded by screens on which is a computer-generated motorway scene - like a giant video game. It is, as Dr Nick Reed, a research fellow at TRL, says, very "immersive". So immersive that the my heart rate has gone through the roof, I am swearing at my poor passenger and I can hear Dr Reed and his colleague Lena Weaver chuckling as they watch me on monitors next door.
I am here to find out if driving with a mobile phone affects your driving. Well of course it does, surely - I am constantly cursing yummy mummies in Chelsea tractors in London as they sweep round corners, one hand crossed over the wheel the other clamped to their ear.
This is of course illegal. And has been since 1 December 2003. It is an offence to use a hand held phone when driving, punishable by a £30 fixed penalty or up to £1,000 on conviction in court. Some 75,000 drivers in England and Wales were prosecuted in 2004.
But not illegal enough obviously - from February 27 2007 drivers face a £60 fine and three points on their licence. Drivers only need 12 points to lose their licence and only 6 points if they are within 2 years of passing their test.
Drivers also face the same increased penalties if they fail to be in a position to have proper control of a vehicle. The police use that offence to deal with those are distracted by a conversation on a hands-free phone.
Employers can also be prosecuted if they order their employees to use any phone to take or make calls while driving.
The simulator is as real as driving a car. The test centre in Bracknell is one of the best in Europe for this sort of thing. It has its own private test track and road network, the UK's first truck simulator and is where crash test dummies are tested until they die. It is the mecca of driving safety in Britain and has been involved in every aspect, from developing motorway barriers to testing baby seats.
Lena Weaver, the simulation trials manager, introduces me to the car. There is simulated engine, wind and road noise, the car moves up and down on pneumatic pads and it feels just like the real thing.
My first test run allows me to get used to the car - this is when the photographer gets out at 70mph. It is probably quite a good thing as it helps me relax a little. After a short break, I go back for my first proper test run. This is to be used as a control so when I use a phone in the car my reaction times can be measured against it.
The 10-minute route takes us through a small village and onto a motorway. Traffic builds up, cars cut in, buses pull out of nowhere and, like a real journey, concentration levels go up and down.
The third run sees me answering a series of hands-free mobile calls. From her office next door Lena asks me a set of test questions. I have to either answer a question - "If you see a circle and it has a rectangle below it, where is the circle in relation to the rectangle?" - repeat something - "it was raining this morning so the children wore boots to school" - or talk about something - "describe your route to the train station".
It is an engaging task, and many of the questions require real thought. I do notice I slow down when I really have to think, but I do that in cars when I have to change the radio station anyway, so it doesn't seem that unusual. (I find out later I am wrong - using a phone is much, much worse). Finally I do the same trial but have to pick up the phone as well as answer it hands free.
The computer records three things. Reaction time, your lane position and the speed.
My reaction times get steadily worse: from 1.25 seconds in the control to 1.75s hands-free and 1.83s when I have to pick up. At 70mph that's the equivalent of traveling an extra 15 metres before reacting.
My variation in lane position - how much I weave from side to side - also gets worse: by 52% for hands free and 100% for picking up. Answering a call means I drive like a drunk.
And my variation in speed for both hands-free and pick-up calls also varies by 50% compared to my control run.
Dr Reed says the results are typical. "When overloaded with a question your mind is completely off the driving," he says. When asked a spatial question I took my hands off the wheel. When listening or concentrating hard I slowed right down. "At one point on the motorway you were driving at 30mph," he tells me.
My results are the same as TRL's own test results. In the study which led to the initial change in the law in 2003 the results were the same for everyone. It concluded: "Using a mobile phone when driving significantly impairs the driver's attention to potentially hazardous situations, more so than having a blood alcohol level at the UK legal limit." In other words, the study found that yes, driving while making a call - any call - is like driving when drunk.
It is the act of talking to an unseen person that is the issue. "If someone is in the car with you," explains Dr Reed, "they react to the road and will stop talking if they see you are concentrating. Someone on the phone doesn't do that."
And when someone is talking, we find it hard to concentrate: "We have a limited capacity to handle information," says Dr Reed, "it's why we turn the radio down when we're parking - we get overloaded."
And when we get overloaded we get distracted, make mistakes and that leads to what Dr Reed calls "negative effects". The rest of us call it a crash.
0 comments:
Post a Comment