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SafeTalk with SafeStart
SafeTalk with SafeStart
S12Ep5 Driving Distractions: Turning Highways into Fortresses of Focus
It's not just smartphones that lure our attention away from driving, it's also the design of our vehicles and our brains working against us that cause us to be distracted. Danny sits down with the President & CEO of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) to discuss.
Host: Danny Smith
Guest: Robyn Robertson
Welcome back to Safe Talk with Safe Start. I'm Danny Smith, and joining me today is Robyn Robertson. She is the president and the CEO of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, or TIRF T-I-R-F and that's pronounced TERF Now. TIRF's vision is to ensure people using roadways and make it home safely every day by eliminating road deaths, serious injuries and their social cost. We're going to talk a good bit about that as we go through this. TIRF's mission is to be the knowledge source for safe road users and also a world leader in research, program and policy development evaluation and in knowledge. So first of all, Robyn, welcome to the podcast.
Robyn Robertson:Hey, Danny, it's very nice to be here and, yeah, certainly, as a research institute that that spends our time looking at behavior, we're very excited to work closely with organizations such as Safe Start that you know are as passionate about road safety as we are.
Danny Smith:Very good and recently folks, Robyn was gracious enough to do an internal presentation for our staff at our home office and, as she said, I believe that her organization's efforts really, really they perfectly align with what we're talking about and what we have done and, frankly, it deserves a bit of time here. So Robyn's organization, among other things, deals with distractions while driving. We're going to talk about that as we go through this today and as we get started. You know we typically think about the cell phone as being the primary distractor, but with more and more technology in our modern vehicles there's so many opportunities to get distracted, right, Robyn?
Robyn Robertson:Right there, absolutely is. I mean because we've had cell phone bans for over a decade. We often tend to associate distracted driving with the use of cell phones, but the research has really evolved over the last two decades and we know a lot more about in-vehicle technologies things like navigation, things like entertainment devices. We know a lot more about external things like billboards. We also know about other types of distractions in the car, whether it be passengers, whether it be objects that we're reaching for, trying to use, and certainly law enforcement have seen probably at all on the right roadside when it comes to the types of distractions that people will engage in.
Danny Smith:Yeah, and with those it's so amazing. You mentioned GPS. I was telling somebody this week in one of our trainer certification workshops we got on the subject of distracted driving and I told them. I said you know, I remember the first GPS that I got Of course this is the old ones that you had to mount on the dash or on the window there and I can remember just being amazed at the, watching the map on there and I realized real quickly hey, this is a great thing, so I don't have to look at a map or anything anymore.
Danny Smith:But it is a huge distraction if I let that, you know, driving along. Oh, I didn't know there was a lake over there or whatever it was, you know, but then nothing really happened and that's really kind of classic negative reinforcement, if you will. If you do an at-risk behavior, you don't get the negative consequences, which then only reinforces that taking the risk is okay and, frankly, worth it, and that's kind of the value behind that SafeS tart question. You know how bad could it have been or how could it have been worse.
Danny Smith:So distraction is one of those human factors that, in SafeS tart terms, can really cause us to make errors, such as not having your eyes or your mind on the task you're performing, which, in this case, is we're talking about, is driving and you know. If you're not moving you're in a safe place. That may be one thing, but when you're moving, when you're behind the wheel of a vehicle, you're setting yourself up for a line of fire situation for sure. It's amazing to me as well just how time seems to almost stand still when we're distracted. We talk a lot about complacency. What does your research show about that?
Robyn Robertson:Well, our organization hasn't specifically looked at the issue, but we've looked at issues surrounding distraction and one of the things that I can tell you is, to your point, yes, people underestimate how much time they spend doing other things, and a number of research studies have shown that the two-second rule, which is anything over two seconds' eyes off the road, increases your risk. People very much underestimate the two seconds and often they're spending 10 seconds, which is a whole different ballgame when you're behind the wheel of a moving vehicle doing 80 miles per hour or 100 kilometers per hour. And the other thing I think that's important to note is that driving is a rote behavior. Ultimately, we do it so often we become very comfortable doing it. It's muscle memory. And, to your point about that classic reinforcement, any number of surveys have shown that drivers more than 80% of drivers will rate themselves as an above average driver and the reality is that statistically impossible.
Robyn Robertson:But I think it's because roads and vehicles are being much better designed, much better built to be forgiving, so those errors that are pretty commonplace when people make them, they don't have that ultimate crash consequence because the roads are forgiving, because other drivers on the road are dialed in or other pedestrians are dialed in. So that whole complacency issue. We become very comfortable taking our eyes and our mind off the road. And it's certainly longer than two seconds, and it's just that, that one second of inattention. If you don't have the opportunity to break, you don't have as much speed or distance to avoid a collision. There's a lot of things that you lose by recognizing a hazard too late.
Danny Smith:Sure, I often say that it's. In our society in particular, it seems as though much of the things of texting and driving or using a cell phone while driving, even hands-free much of that started as a very deliberate action on our part, but it's become very habitual to us now. It's become very second nature. You also mentioned something about the length of time I think you would describe it as 30 seconds to recover after distraction. Is that right?
Robyn Robertson:Yeah, there's some research that shows, particularly in a complex driving situation, you know if you're on a highway or there's a lot of vehicle traffic or at an intersection when you so the classic one that we see now on the roads is people will stop and check their phone or do whatever at an intersection because they believe they're stopped and they're safe. And the reality is the intersection is one of the most dangerous places to be. But when you take your mind off of driving and focus on another task, particularly complex tasks, it can take up to 30 seconds for your brain to fully regain that situational awareness of what's happening around your vehicle, what's happening on the road, what's happening up ahead. And again, that's time loss that is invaluable to avoid a collision and we tend to underestimate how long it takes us to get dialed back into having full situational awareness.
Danny Smith:That's very interesting. You also mentioned a functional MRI and how that's beginning now to unlock so much about how our brains really work and how, you know, just the functionality of the brain really plays into all of this. What, what did your organization learned since the advent of those functional MRIs?
Robyn Robertson:Well, so the studies that you're talking about. There's been a few studies done in Canada and some in the US and generally those researchers have taken us a very compact functional MRI and put it in a driving simulator. So that means they can send drivers in a safe, controlled setting on a route, a driving route in a simulator, and have them hooked up to a functional MRI so they can map and see what's happening in their brain. So generally when you're driving there's a lot of manual and visual tasks. So driving is divided attention right, it's manual, visual, cognitive. There's a lot of manual, visual in kind of straight driving and that is an area at the back of your brain that you. That's kind of where those functions are located.
Robyn Robertson:So the functional MRI will show that the back of the brain there's more activity happening there and when you give someone a complex task, whether you're asking them to, you know, make a phone call or send a text or engage in some secondary task that requires cognitive thinking and decision making and information process, and you see that activity from the back of the brain kind of dim and you see more mental resources up front in the brain. So you can literally see the shift that happens with distraction, from the back of your brain to the front of your brain, and that really just is a great illustration for people to understand what happens when they're distracted and how those mental resources in their brain are now reallocated away from the driving task to do this other task that's not related to driving, and that's when you start missing information right in the driving environment. You field the view shrinks and you just it's the looking but not seeing phenomenon, where you literally don't see a lot of important information on the road, particularly with respect to hazards.
Danny Smith:That makes perfect sense. You also mentioned something else that I think was a really interesting phrase, and that was the human machine interface. Can you tell us a little more about that?
Robyn Robertson:Sure. So the human machine interface is becoming more and more important as vehicles become more drive by wire. There's a lot more technology in vehicles today and, like any good piece of technology, there are days that it works and there are days that it doesn't. And the human machine interface refers to how intuitive those technologies are to use, meaning can we use them with a very limited amount of attention, very easily. So I'm sure we've all had the experience with our cell phones and, for those of us of an older driving generation, with things like VCRs or stereos.
Robyn Robertson:What do you do when the technology fails? What do you do when it doesn't work? Right, you look at it. So the human machine interface means you should be able to get the information that's needed and act on it without necessarily looking at it. And generally, what happens with technologies and vehicles if that HMI factor is not high, is we end up looking at the console of our car to figure out why the map isn't working, why the stereo isn't working, why we can't find the seat heater, and that's when you take your eyes off the road, and those tasks are definitely more than two seconds right. So your risk factors go up. So that human machine interface is incredibly important that we understand what the vehicles telling us in terms of risk or in terms of safety and we're able to act on it without necessarily taking our hands off the wheel, eyes off the road and mind off the task.
Danny Smith:Sure, yeah, obviously, as someone who travels quite a lot, as most of our consulting staff does and many of our listeners do as well you end up in a lot of different vehicles as you're traveling and getting into different rental cars, and every every car's controls are different, and even something as simple as setting the mirrors. I've learned that that is an important thing to do before you even pull out of the parking deck of the of the rental car facility. Make sure you take a moment, get your seat adjusted, get the, get your maps pulled up, get the mirrors adjusted. Try to get everything done before you start moving. And that's you know. If you, if not, like you said, you're going to look at it. It's the natural thing to do. You try to fix something. The thing you discussed with us as well was just our how. We have a limited cognitive ability. I'm really curious about your thoughts on how things like social media, in particular, is impacting us in terms of that.
Robyn Robertson:Yeah Well, I think FOMO is a big one, right? Fear of missing out. For those of us who drove long before we had cell phones, I mean, personally, I don't really care what my cell phone does while I'm driving because that's my little cone of silence, right, nobody can reach me. I could just drive. But I think for a lot of people either it's the social connection through social media or work-related it's and it really creates a lot of pressure. And, going back to what we talked about earlier, people have done it and not had a negative consequence, and what they forget is they've not had a negative consequence yet because they've been lucky, because the roads are forgiving, because other drivers were dialed in and ultimately you know that luck runs out. So I think social media in particular is a really important risk when it comes to driving, because there's nothing happening on social media. That's more important because you actually have people's lives in your hands while you're driving your vehicle and nothing happening online compares to that.
Danny Smith:We have a lot of clients who tell us as well they're dealing with distractions, not just behind the wheel of company vehicles while their folks are out on service calls, sales calls, going client to client for salespeople or whatever it is that they're doing, but just distractions that they're having in the workplace working around machinery, and it's the same same basic functionality. I'm quite sure you know, and we have a number of clients that have, you know, tried to enforce cell phone bans, you know, in their shops and things of that nature. But it's still that distractions causing problems. You're right. The social media, that, and I think you're right that fear of missing out. We've become very addicted to many of these things.
Robyn Robertson:Yep, we get that positive reinforcement right from the lights and the sounds, just like we do when we're gambling. So, yeah, best thing to do is simply to turn your phone off. Turn on the do not disturb function, which is really not well known. You know pretty much every phone has that feature, but it's not a default setting. So you just need to turn it on and then nobody can reach you. You can have your own cone of silence while you're driving when you turn on that feature.
Danny Smith:Sure, yeah. Another thing that we talk about a lot with Safe Start is just this idea of how we all think that we're really, really great multitaskers. But I remember used a phrase that was really kind of new to me, but I've kind of added that into my vocabulary. That's the idea of toggle tasking. Can you explain that to our listeners?
Robyn Robertson:Right. So with respect to multitasking, many of us put that on our resume with pride that we're capable of doing that. And here's the reality when you are multitasking, you are simply switching your attention rapidly back and forth across too many tasks, and as you switch back and forth, your performance degrades because there's little pieces of information. But we talked about earlier right, where it can take you up to 30 seconds to get dialed back in. It's kind of the same phenomenon where you're missing some important information as you switch back and forth, and that means your performance is deteriorating. So, ultimately, saying that we can multitask is really what we're saying is we're comfortable doing two different things poorly which is perhaps a better way to look at it to incentivize ourselves.
Robyn Robertson:You know, not to be distracted while we're driving.
Danny Smith:Sure, for me, one of the classic examples that I often ask classes is how many of you have gotten in a real hurry, doing four or five things at one time, or thinking you're doing that, and one of the things you're doing is sending an email, and then you have to send that second email that says, oops, I forgot the attachment. Well, why did you forget that? Well, because you were, you know, trying to do three or four other things at the same time. You put that behind the wheel. Obviously we're hopefully well, hopefully, we're not sending an email while we're driving or with an attachment, but you get the idea. It certainly is a lot of other things.
Robyn Robertson:Sorry one of the things we talk about in our Drop it and Drive program is how many of us have walked into the kitchen with purpose and completely forgot what the heck it is we were supposed to do there because we tried to do something else along the way. You know, pick up some laundry and take it through to the laundry room as you're passing through the kitchen and all of a sudden you're in the kitchen going why was I here? And that's kind of the prime example that I think everyone can relate to.
Danny Smith:Sure, I've met a former coworker who referred to that as believing in the hereafter. He said he'd gotten to the age where he could walk into a room and try to remember what he was here after. So yeah, I can relate to that for sure. So what are some other practical things that you could give us, just some practical advice here? You mentioned, you know, just turning the phone off. But again, it's more than just the phone, right? So what are some other things we can do to minimize distractions while we're behind the wheel?
Robyn Robertson:So I think some important ones you know we've also talked about in terms of making sure your vehicle is set up for your trip, if you need your GPS, if you want a particular playlist, if you need to check your mirrors all of those things are incredibly important.
Robyn Robertson:The other one that is probably less well recognized, but really important for employers as staff or they're driving, whether it's a personal vehicle or a company vehicle is to secure what they have in their car.
Robyn Robertson:Right, we think about teenagers, for example, with their backpacks, which are incredibly heavy these days, and if that's just loose on the back seat and you, you know, end up with an evasive maneuver or whatever to avoid something, then that backpack is, you know, a projectile in the vehicle, same with a toolbox, same with your lunchbox.
Robyn Robertson:So, securing what you have in the vehicle and pets fall into that category. Pets are a huge distraction and for all the people who carry their pets on their lap when they're driving, I would urge them to think about the airbag that would deploy if they were in a collision, and how well their, their you know, five 10-pound, animal is going to survive when they're struck full force with an airbag.
Robyn Robertson:So the safest thing we can do is secure our pets in the vehicle. And then, of course, the turn on the do not disturb, which is really important, particularly for younger people. One of the reasons they often will check their phone or use their phone while they're driving is because their parents have email, texted, Facebook, whatever, and they feel a sense of urgency in responding to their parents and I think that's an important conversation for every parent to have with a young driver is the do not disturb function is important and you know if they're driving, answering the phone and answering that text is is not a priority at that time. So lots of different strategies. We just need to be consistent in applying them.
Danny Smith:Sure, you mentioned pets and my Dachshund, Frank loves to ride with me and it's. I've had to be very conscious when I have him in the truck with me to make sure that he stays in the seat, but at the same time, I have to remind him to stay there, don't try to come over here. And I've caught myself with him at times becoming distracted. So it's like, yeah, we'll have to secure him in there, because that's just not working the way I've been doing it for sure. So, yeah, I've got something to work on there myself.
Robyn Robertson:So yeah, you can actually get a seat belt. I mean, we have a 65 pound Husky shepherd sitting in the back seat and in a collision he would probably kill us just with that velocity of him flying forward. So we have a seat belt and you can actually get seat belts for your pets, and that's another, another way we keep them safe and keep them with us as long as possible.
Danny Smith:So, yeah, I had a gentleman in the trainer certification class I was doing earlier this week out in Houston who shared a story about his boy. This is kind of the combination of everything we're talking about here. He shared a story about an automobile accident he was in where his pet knocked over his cell phone in the car and he was reaching for the cell phone, and a combination of I guess, really three of the things that we're talking about here, so thinking about animals in general. There, before we get out of here, our producer, Kevin Cobb, made a note here and told me he says you have to be sure to ask Robyn about the bear story. So tell us about the bear story.
Robyn Robertson:In our Drop it and Drive program. One of the videos we show really to demonstrate that in attention blindness is actually a news report coming out of California. There's the news report is about a bear loose in the neighborhood and the video shows some guy walking out of his house on his phone. Head down came out the side door, walking along the side of the house as the bear was coming around the garage and he literally got incredibly close to the bear. It couldn't have been more than five or six feet at most in front of him and all of a sudden you watch him startle and dash. But he literally was walking right up to a bear and didn't see it because he was so immersed in his cell phone. And that's kind of the ultimate illustration of how on earth you could miss something significant and dangerous immediately in your line of sight because you're more interested in what's happening on social media or in your text messages.
Danny Smith:Wow, you mentioned as we were chatting just before we started and hit record here on the podcast. You mentioned that there's a little bit of a difference here. As you were talking about that, that kind of reminded me we obviously would think we would sense the danger with a bear, but yet we don't seem to think of the vehicle as being a huge danger, you know, be it us driving or us walking around vehicles, but yet it's a little bit different, I guess, as you were mentioning before the podcast, as to who is affected by this not just the driver, but it can be pedestrians and it's actually a little bit different even than what we've historically seen with drunk driving. I think you were telling me right.
Robyn Robertson:Right. So with drunk driving, when we talk about drunk driving fatalities, the reality is in about 60% of those cases, at least in Canada, the person killed is the drunk driver. That's very different from distracted driving, distracted driving in a majority of collisions, it's the other non-distracted road user who was killed. That could be another driver, that could be a pedestrian, that could be a cyclist. So I think that's probably the most important message to leave listeners with is when you are behind the wheel of your car, you literally have other people's lives in your hands, and when you make that choice to be distracted, you are putting those lives at risk. And, unlike video games, driving in real life there is no do-overs and if you've ever spoken to anyone who's been at fault in a collision in which someone has been injured or died, they spend a lifetime wishing they could take it back, and they can't. And I think that's the most important thing we need to think about every time we get behind the wheel of a car.
Danny Smith:It really is. And yeah, I've thought about the number of times that I've driven when I've been distracted and how easily it could have been a different outcome If I did not snap back to reality there and realize that distraction was there and how that could have affected, as you said, not just me but somebody else. And if something bad did happen, I just I can't imagine living with that. But yet we don't consider those consequences and we really should.
Robyn Robertson:The difference between a crash and a near miss is measured in milliseconds and millimeters. And that split second of looking away not being dialed in the road changes and there's your crash Sure.
Danny Smith:Exactly, R obyn. Thanks so much for making time with us today. I really, really appreciate this and I've enjoyed this tremendously, and hopefully, our listeners have as well If you would tell us our listeners about a little more about your organization, where they can find more information about your organization.
Robyn Robertson:Sure. So again, TIRF is an independent road safety research institute. We have a variety of free resources on materials on our website, and our website is www. tirf. ca. So tirf. ca. If you're looking for more information on a range of road safety topics, you can find it there. And I just want to say thanks, Danny. You guys are doing great work at Safe Start. I was pleased to be able to have the opportunity to connect with many of the staff there and I look forward to a continued discussion.
Danny Smith:Thanks again so much for being here. It's really been our pleasure. And that website, again, folks, is tirf. ca Robyn. Again, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us today and thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. If you would be sure to share this with others in your organization not just your leaders, but share it with your frontline employees as well, share it with your friends and family members this is a really important message that we need to make sure we're getting out to everyone, because all of us are susceptible to distractions, be it behind the wheel or even as pedestrians, and so we need to make sure that we're really focused on not letting those things take our attention away from the primary task that we're doing. I'm Danny Smith for Safe Talk with Safe Start. Thanks so much everyone, and have a great day.