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"Supertaskers" Can Safely Use Mobile Phones While Driving
nk497 writes "While most of us are dangerous when texting, chatting on a phone or being otherwise distracted while driving, one in 40 are actually just fine with such distractions. In a small study, such 'supertaskers' were just as good at driving when carrying on a conversation over a hands-free phone as they were when fully focused. That said, the researchers warned that most people are much worse at driving while chatting and shouldn't do it, adding: 'Given the number of individuals who routinely talk on the phone while driving, one would have hoped that there would be a greater percentage of supertaskers.'"
That 1 in 40 aside, reader crimeandpunishment writes "The US Transportation Department is calling for a permanent ban on texting while driving, for interstate truck and bus drivers. An interim ban has been in place since January. The government says it is doing everything it can to make roads safer by reducing the threat of distracted drivers."
I'm just fine with the added distractions. In fact, while driving, I usually #*&&&%>...
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This gives many ignorant people justification to feel like they are really one of those 1 in 40. Just don't fucking do it, whether you think you are good at it or not. I'm sure I could do it, but I try not to even answer the phone when I'm on the road.
The sample size was really small in this - 200. So 5 people out of 200 showed no deterioration in driving skill with improved memory performance.
I'd love to see how their driving metrics compared to everyone else though. Is it that the keep driving well while on the phone, or are they just crap drivers who don't concentrate on the road even when they're not on the phone?
Nope. Just like with drunk drivers, usually the people killed in accidents are the ones who just happened to be in the way, not the person who was doing something really stupid.
I wonder how many of those had a foreign driver's license.
I think the current poll is informative here. While I suspect that the average IQ of a slashdot reader is indeed above average, The percentage of "super genius" is probably exaggerated.
The lesson is that while 1/40th of the population falls under the "supertasker" category, the number that claim to be is much, much higher. My estimate would be 1/4th or more perceive themselves that way. And that's a dangerous perception to have.
Let's face it: nobody is willing to say "no phone use at all" while driving. So we have an entirely ineffective compromise which requires hands-free devices. This is a great way to pretend to do something while not actually doing any of it.
However, far worse, I think there is another factor here: If avoid all distractions while driving on a long trip one of two things will get you: highway hypnosis (a real form of hypnosis sometimes including post-hypnotic amnesia) or your brain will make up its own distractions. Really, has anyone here not had the experience of driving somewhere, getting there, and realizing that there is a chunk of time missing in your memory for part of the drive? While it is profoundly stupid to talk on the phone while navigating through a school zone crowded with students just released from school and their parents picking them up, I am not sure one can make a case that it is a net safety hazard to use a cell phone (hands-free or otherwise) driving down he freeway in the middle of nowhere. In fact, insofar as it prevents more dangerous hypnotic states from developing, it might be a net safety win to talk on the phone.
A much better approach would be to ban all use of cell phones while driving through residential and school zones, ban most cell use while elsewhere within city limits, and allow driving and talking on the phone on open roads in the country. That's not a popular view tough.
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Problem is this study will be shown to be proof worldwide when there are big differences between the US and other countries when it comes to driving and cars.
In the UK we're mostly manual transmission drivers. An auto is easier to drive when holding a phone, but try holding a phone, steering and changing gear at the same time!!
Great. Now every dipshit who thinks he is one of the 1 in 40 supposed "supertaskers" will feel he is entitled to fully express his inner idiot. Great. I'll bet that a few months or years from now this will be shown to actually be the crock of shit it sounds like.
I saw this teenager once shooting hoops while talking on his cell phone. For about five minutes he just kept at it, didn't miss a shot, didn't pause talking while doing a jumpshot or anything. Someone else started using the same hoop, no sweat, didn't even have to wait just perfectly synchronized with the other kid.
Damn.
1 in 40. Not me.
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No, what happens is the non-supertaskers take out other people in their way who may or may not be supertaskers. The net effect will be no change in the supertaskers:non-supertaskers ratio.
You wanna see super taskers, look at an ambulance that's driving with it's lights and sirens on. We would clear an intersection, zip around traffic, talk on the radio, plug in addresses into GPS, and eat our lunch all at the same time, while trying to provide a smooth ride for the people in back doing CPR and handling sharp pointy objects.
Probably there are more supertankers than supertaskers on /.
That was how I initially read the headline for an instant.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I'm not a politician and I'm not in a huff. Instead I'm outraged at the assholes who take my life and that of others in their hands by driving around chatting on their cellphones absolutely oblivious to other drivers.
This is the first time I've cursed on slashdot. I don't like to do it and see far too much of it here and elsewhere. In this case though it's perfectly fitting.
Mod parent up. I've recently passed my driving test and, just before I took it, I was nearly hit by a woman who skipped a red light whilst texting. She would have hit the driver's door and I'd be dead. She would be fine. The only thing that saved me was that I'd come out onto the main road slower than I should have; she'd missed the green by a good 10 seconds.
Seriously, anyone who talks or texts whilst driving is a danger. Not only are you distracted, you are NOT in full control of your car as you have only one hand on the wheel.
are you retarded enough to suggest just because we can't ban all possible distractions, we should just let drivers do dangerous shit like text while driving? this sounds like the same logic as "condoms are only 99% effective so lets not bother with them!".
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
1 in 40? I wonder if that is the same proportion of people who can be fighter pilots. In a past life I was a Weapons Director in the Air Force - fancy title for someone who looks at a radar screen and says "the bad guys are over there!" I worked with fighter pilots (primarily the F-15 and F-16), and the thing is, no one task they do is all that complicated. The catch is that you have to do several at the same time:
1) Fly the plane
2) Operate the radar
3) Search visually outside the cockpit
4) Talk/listen to your wingman
5) Talk/listen to radar controllers (that was me)
Only when you have mastered all these can you then:
6) Develop a mental picture of what is going on - "Situational Awareness" (SA)
7) Decide on the proper tactics and execute them, and
8) Get yourself into position and employ the weapons systems
Experienced pilots are obviously masters of all 8. An inexperienced pilot can get bogged down on step 2, and never hear you repeatedly telling him that the bandit is rolling in on his six-o-clock.
Of course, they get better, and I wonder if proper training could turn more people into 'supertaskers'. Then again, we don't spend hundreds of hours and millions of dollars training the average driver.
This is precisely why more forums are using catpchas.
This was probably bait but I took it.
If you honestly believe you have a system for using the phone safely while driving you are far dumber than you think you are. While your attention is on the phone at any time your attention is not fully on anything else. Thus you loose situational awareness. Thus when you return your attention to driving your brain has to process a huge chunk of information to catch up. If you are task flipping your brain will start to devalue lesser pieces of information.
For example a kid riding a bike on a side walk. You will devalue that in your brain in order to concentrate vehicles on the road. You won't have a full picture of what the kid was doing previously. For example he could have show previously that he had poor balance and wobbled a lot. You didn't see it because you were texting. All of a sudden this kid falls onto the road in front of you. Your fine but now the kid is in hospital. Technically it was the kids fault but really it was your dumb ass brain that was at fault. You did not have a full situational aware that you would have easily had, had you just kept your eyes on the task of driving.
Using a phone while driving is dangerous period.
Wrong, partially. When one person runs into another person, the person getting hit tends to sustain more damage, especially since the person doing the hitting usually does it with the front end of their car, and the person getting hit frequently gets hit somewhere other than the front end, such as in the door. This is very common at intersections when some moron runs a red light. Doors don't offer much protection against impact compared to the front end of a car.
Secondly, if the drunk/texter runs into a pedestrian or cyclist or motorcyclist, again the drunk is going to get away injury-free while the innocent party is screwed.
"Been driving a stick for 20 years, I spend 95% of my time when driving in the city without my hand on the wheel."
Been driving for 35yrs and I also drive a manual, after reading how good you think you are I'm pretty sure I know what your doing with your other hand.
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This is the first time I've cursed on slashdot.
Once you start, it's really fucking hard to stop.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
The article you are responding to clearly states that 1 in 40 people who engage in these activities are not any more dangerous while doing it.
Based on 5 outliers in a sample of only 200, in a study whose methodology has not yet been published but possibly observing only voice calls using hands-free systems, and ignoring the complete lack of previous support for this theory from a diverse body of evidence gathered over quite a few years now into both road safety and cognitive theory.
I think I'll wait until the jury is back before I start jumping to any conclusions on this one.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You can't drive as if every vehicle approaching on a side street might fail to stop. I was clobbered by a young inexperienced driver who ran a red light. Saw him, too, and didn't like how fast he was coming up to the light, so I moved away one lane and slowed a little. I was thinking he might not be able to quite stop. Instead, he sped up, running the light, and put himself squarely in front of me. If I'd thought of that possibility, I might have been ready for it and able to avoid him. Might. On the other hand, had I not slowed a little, he might have nailed me in the side, and I might be dead. For his part, he claimed he never saw the light, and there's a little something to that-- it's the sort of light that while quite visible physically, is not so mentally visible. Drivers are conditioned to expect lights in that kind of setting to be green when they approach.
For the first week after returning to the road, I was cringing at every approaching vehicle. And discovering that there were always approaching vehicles. You can't drive like that. It's stressful and exhausting, and you still won't see everything. You've got to play the very high odds that others will not make a boneheaded mistake like that, and that if they do, your car will protect you well enough that you aren't seriously hurt.
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I think you missed the point.
We don't allow pilots to be distracted, cockpit voice recorders and a myriad of other sensors take pretty good care of that, would you argue this is wrong? They fuck up and 100+ people die. If they get away with it they kiss their job goodbye.
Why do we treat pilots differently? Scale? Who really cares about scale if the victim happens to be someone you care about. More people die on the roads than they do in aircraft accidents, something should be done to reduce accident statistics on the road. Just because evidence might exist to show people can do something, doesn't mean they should do it.
If you don't already do this, I'd suggest you stick your backside on a motorbike for a couple of months so you can get a better sense of how distracted drivers really are in general. If you get it wrong it gets real - real quick.