Methods used in cell-phone/driving studies spur debate

Computerworld - Findings vary widely between different research studies on driving while talking or texting from a cell phone.

Most recently, a mini-debate has cropped up over whether real world tests need to be used in such studies instead of using tests from driving simulators. As one might expect, the differences in the methods and the findings have led some researchers to recommend -- what else? -- more studies.

Hundreds of studies have been conducted in the past decade by researchers in psychology and traffic safety on the impact of talking on cell phones and texting while driving. The most recent findings, by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, found that truck drivers who text message while driving increased their risk of a crash by 23 times.

Virginia Tech emphasized that it used observations of driving in real-world road conditions, deploying cameras and instruments installed in participant's vehicles who together drove more than 6 million miles. The cameras and other gear analyzed eye-glance movements. When a driver's eyes were looking away from the forward roadway to dial a cell phone number or text a message, the drivers were judged to have the highest risk.

The summary of Virginia Tech's findings was issued one week after government documents from 2003 showing the dangers of driving while talking on a cell phone were released based on a Freedom of Information Act request by two consumer advocacy groups, the Center for Auto Safety and Public Citizen.

The Center for Auto Safety's executive director, Clarence Ditlow, went so far to say that the government documents and accompanied research showed the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving were as hazardous as drinking and driving. Ditlow also called attention to a researcher at the University of Utah, David Strayer, who has written a dozen papers on the adverse impact of driving while using a cell phone. Strayer's latest research showed that drivers practicing in a driving simulator could not improve their safe-driving ability while using a hands-free cell phone. The general point of the research found that talking alone on the phone is distracting, Ditlow and others said.

However, Virginia Tech, in releasing its findings, took time to defend its "naturalistic" method of using real-world driving, calling it the "gold standard" for such studies. It also said that "a driving simulator is not actual driving," and that the results from simulator research are "at odds" from real-world studies. Virginia Tech did not elaborate on the quantitative difference, but noted that drivers are somehow able to make adjustments to hazards in the real world that they don't make in the simulator, meaning the results from real world studies sometimes show less of a hazard from distractions than do simulators.