Driver Distraction, Our views

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Defining the driving system is an essential part of working with driver distraction.  In our pending patent on driver distraction we have defined the Driving system to include these six elements.

The Driving Systems(Patents Granted and Pending)

  • Assessment

  • Man

  • Machine,

  • Environment

  • Regulation

  • History

 		  
  Introduction

Driver distraction is a leading cause of accidents.  Unlike Alcohol and Drug use which causes the highest number of death percentages, driver distraction is not as measurable because it does not leave any evidence after an accident occurs, and rarely do drivers volunteer such information.

In recent history, driver distractions where thought to be caused by radios and the like.  A Michigan State Police ad that ran on TV in the 70's clearly identifies the Radio as a cause of distraction that lead to the death of a child.

Today, we know that driver distraction is not only caused by distraction with technologies in the vehicle.  There are other causes as well

  

 
Our Observations
  Driver distraction is caused by many factors.  These factors can be divided into two categories  one category contains factors that can be eliminated completely by a disciplined driver.  Other category contains factors that can not be eliminated due to external factors and obligations a driver can not avoid.
 

Distractions we can not get around

An Example of distraction that can not be eliminated by a driver would be distractions forced upon driver by the surrounding environment:

  • Crying child

  • Litigious passenger

  • Cell phone  or Pager ringing in an inopportune time,

  • Pets barking,

  • malfunctioning vehicle feature

  • in vehicle falling objects due to improper or circumvented design

  • Day dreaming, or dwelling over an event or a problem in search of a solution

It is not possible to eliminate all of these conditions all of the time.  Some of these distracters have cultural acceptance in origin, e.g.

  • It is OK to allow a pet into the car

  • It is OK to carry out an intense conversation with a spouse prior to getting to a party. 

Other cause for distractions are unforeseen, and not expected and are not linked to cultural or personal preferences, e.g.

  • Malfunctioning vehicle feature,

  • Crying infant in the rear seat,

  • Cell phone  or Pager ringing in an inopportune time, 

 

  

Distractions we can get around

An example of distraction that can be eliminated by a driver would be avoiding this type of activities while driving :

  • Eating
  • Drinking
  • Answering or initiating calls on a cell phone
  • Looking for papers or documents
  • Reading a paper or document
  • Other similar busy work that a driver can physically get involved with.

It is of course possible to avoid drinking or eating in the car while driving.  Also, avoiding getting involved in additional tasks such as reading a map or looking for papers while driving or arranging ones brief case or putting on make up are also possible.  It is a matter of personal choices that we make regarding time managements and life styles.

BUT IS THIS A REAL SOLUTION?

While keeping a Radio turned off, or keeping a Cell phone turned off while driving can be done by an individual decision, the life style most of the world leads now will cause a great disadvantage to a person carrying out such disciplined actions.  An example of such disadvantages can be:

  • Missing information about traffic deadlock ahead
  • Missing a call regarding a meeting cancellation, or delay.
  • Getting home just to find that you need to go out again to run some errands which they would have accomplished easily on the way.

 

  
 

Two different root causes, One outcome, What's the solution

In a world that is connected, being out of touch while in a vehicle is a luxury that no one person, corporation, entity, or country can afford.  Yet we still have to resolve the issues as described above. 

Is turning off a cell phone while driving a solution?

Is keeping the babies at home all the time or banning them in vehicles a solution?

Should it be Illegal for a manager to discuss business with an employee while in a car?

 

The answer to those questions or similar ones is to think out of the box and achieve a solution that can orchestrate the operations of a complete driving system without severely or un necessarily curtailing any of the component of such system.

 

The Analogy to such solution would be the existence of more then one vehicle on the road, yet, they are to a great extent, able to share the road in part due to education, and in other parts due to organization and orchestration of traffic via road engineering, traffic lights etc.. and supported by enforcement.  This is the model for our solution, and it is called STMCGatewayTM, Safe Telematics Monitoring and Control GatewayTM