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Siri's Creator Challenges Texting-While-Driving Study
waderoush writes "A rash of media reports last week, reporting on a study released by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, implied that using voice-to-text apps like Siri or Vlingo while driving is no safer than manual texting. But Adam Cheyer, the co-inventor of Siri, says journalists took the wrong message from the study, which didn't test Siri or Vlingo in the recommended hands-free, eyes-free mode. In the study, researchers asked subjects to drive a closed course while they held an iPhone or Android phone in one hand, spoke messages into Siri or Vlingo, proofread the messages visually, and pressed buttons to send the messages. Under these conditions, driver response times were delayed by nearly a factor of two, the researchers found. 'Of course your driving performance is going to be degraded if you're reading screens and pushing buttons,' says Cheyer, who joined Apple in 2010 as part of the Siri acquisition and left the company two years later. To study whether voice-to-text apps are really safer than manual texting, he says, the Texas researchers should have tested Siri and Vlingo in car mode, where a Bluetooth headset or speakers are used to minimize visual and manual interaction. 'The study seems to have misunderstood how Siri was designed to be used,' Cheyer says. 'I don't think that there is any evidence that shows that if Siri and other systems are used properly in eyes-free mode, they are 'just as risky as texting.''"
Really all you need to know.
I thought it has been long established through research that even a hands free cradle talking on the phone is a dangerous distraction while driving, Can't see how this can be less of a distraction than that even if it is better than manual texting. People have enough accidents without additional distractions.
When you're driving you should be concentrating on driving, that's it, anything else can lead to an accident because your mind is not on the task at hand.
So, no, you shouldn't be pissing about sending texts, if you don't like it, get a bus/train where you can text to your hearts delight.
If you're so f**kin important that you need to text, then get a chauffeur.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
they both exist. I can only speak for myself and people I know who have used voice commands while driving, however EVERYONE, myself included, will speak to their phone for the text, HOWEVER we all double check the msg before hitting send. I think that is where the issue lies. we simply dont trust siri or google voice or other text to type things to be 100% yet. and until that can be true (if it can ever be) it will never be as safe as simply driving and not doing other things.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I don't really agree with this guy, based on how texting is currently done. Most of us like reading their texts (or proofreading speech-to-texts), and few of us use text-to-speech, so the "eyes free" situation really isn't that common. I *really* don't think that using "Siri is just as risky as texting" is misleading at all, in our current accepted usage.
LegendMUD
The research is still valid in the sense that most people probably have no idea about "car mode" and "no-eyes" mode. That said, even if you were to consider only those who are aware of such features as your test subjects, I wonder if the data would be any different (provided the test subjects are not explicitly told they must use no-eyes mode and car-mode). I know that if car-mode and no-eyes mode puts many restrictions on Siri, then (for me), Siri would not be as useful.
If the study tested Siri the way Siri is normally used, then how Siri was designed to be used is irrelevant.
Of course your driving performance is going to be degraded if you're reading screens and pushing buttons,'
See, shit like this is why the Prophet Hicks was so adamant in his belief that advertising people should do the world a favor and kill themselves.
FYI, asshole, it's an issue because humans cannot multitask, and every second you pay attention to that goddamn toy is one more second you're not paying attention to the road.
Perhaps Mr. My-Sales-Figures-Are-More-Important-Than-Your-Safety should read the stacks upon stacks of other studies that prove any distraction from driving is dangerous. Even talking to the guy in the passenger seat.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If you did invent 50% of the app, you could claim the "co-invent" title, but if it is about 0.0000000....1%, are you a thief or "co"-inventor?
Yes, most people drive while in the brain-free mode. Self driving cars can't come soon enough.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The comparison should really be based on how drivers actually behave while texting or using hands-free Siri.
My sister thinks she's safe when she drives hands-free with Bluetooth enabled voice cell in her Prius.
But she weaves and drifts while driving.
If she were texting, it would be bad.
It's the difference between being Wasted (hands-free Siri, due to mental distraction, and occassional looking at display), Totally wasted (normal cell phone while driving), and Blotto (texting while driving).
You're still a menace to society, and we'd be better off if you had only downed two shots of vodka instead.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Sure, ideally you'd never look at the screen. But are we sure most people wouldn't proofread messages and manually press send once happy? Maybe the study looked at what most people would consider voice-to-text, and how this form of VTT would affect driving.
It would appear speaking into Siri or other applications that do speech to text hasn't been studied enough to make a final decision, but I think it's going to end up OK. This study is a piece of garbage though and falls into bad research, as the software wasn't used as intended in the car.
The only valid study would evaluate the software being used as it is typically used, regardless of the manufacturers intent.
If you handle a gun, your priority is safety. Your safety and that of others. That is your first priority and the own priority.
Traffic is dangerous too, so it's the same there.
If your bloody text messages are so important that it can't wait 10 minutes, you better be so bloody important that you can afford a driver.
Of not, your focus on the traffic.
Privacy is terrorism.
Merely having a conversation with someone impacts your driving; passengers tend to be aware of circumstances like intersections, onramps, cyclists, etc - but people on the other end of your call can't be. It's why Ray Lahood and NHTSA wanted cell phone calls by drivers to end, period. Then there's the issue of control of the car; regardless of whether or not you're "eyes free", if you're holding something in you hand, you're not able to control your vehicle as well as you can with two hands on the wheel. I attended a driving handling clinic (which was insanely fun) where they had you do a slalom course normally, and then do it holding a water bottle to the side of your head; the results speak for themselves.
Please help metamoderate.
I don't care how Siri was 'designed to be used'. I care abut how it actually works in practice.
Do people actually look at the screen? Yes.
Is it stable enough and good enough that people actually trust it to not screw up the text? No.
I may be a biased commentator, but I am currently on the hunt for a replacement vehicle specifically because of a texting driver. Luckily, I am still vertical and breathing.
Pilots and radios are completely different.
1, it is task oriented. You are not gabbing about grocery lists, or where Ralph in accounting left the Finster file.
2. It is a half-duplex conversation. Your brain is not engaged in listening for the other person to say something, until you release the mic button.
Um, what's a freeway?
I live in Seattle and I rarely drive on I-5, and even then just for one stop or two.
Where we're going we don't need freeways.
It's illegal to drive without being conscious of road conditions.
As in pull over, turn off ignition, stop driving illegal.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Always test it as it is being used by the users. Not the way it is designed to be used by the designers. It does not matter what the designer thinks how it should be used. Testing it according to the design manual is like debugging software by stepping through the comments instead of looking at code.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
As Hagbard Celine was wont to say, "if you whistle while you're pissing, you have two minds where one is quite sufficient. If you have two minds, you are at war with yourself. If you are at war with yourself, it is easy for an external force to defeat you. This is why Mong-Tse wrote, 'A man must destroy himself before others can destroy him.'"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...is that voice-to-text software is so remarkably unreliable that nobody uses it without proofreading the output before sending. I think most people could have told you this without an official study.
And just for the obtuse, it isn't that it completely misunderstands everything you say, it's that when you're sending texts, the things it tends to fail to translate properly tend to be things that get your text posted to one of those autocorrect-joke sites. Or get you in trouble with the wife/husband/parents/boss.
You're new 'round here, aintcha?
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
" letting Texas A&M Transportation Institute do a study"
What do you mean "letting"?
Are you implying that our government should be in the business of banning universities from conducting experiments and studies?
What does the FCC post have to do with a transportation study?
That post is usually hand picked to be someone that will represent the elected president's agenda. For example, Bush picked Colin Powel's son as his FCC chairman, because of course they wanted hands off regulation, which is a bit ironic because that's what FCC does. Pretty much the Ron Swanson of FCC.
Stop trying so hard. If you squint your eyes hard enough you will see a conspiracy in anything.
I ride my bike. The more car drivers' heads are up, the safer I am. The heck with jerks trying to tout their products at the expense of public safety.
So it's Obama's fault that TTI used the "handsfree" devices in the most used, not "recommended" modes? When the makers whine about the use being "not handsfree" can they tell us what percentage of use is handsfree? No? So the makers are complaining to defend their product, not because the test was actually not valid.
Learn to love Alaska
I have an iPhone 4S but I long ago concluded that Siri is useless. It doesn't understand conversational speech and requires pressing and holding the button every time you want it to do anything. Its speech recognition only gets about 50-60% of words correct. I tried dictating a text in the car about twice before deciding it was entirely reckless and dangerous.
Every example I've ever heard of using Siri has been stupid pointless stuff I would never do anyway. It would be nice if it had an AI capable of taking dictation accurately and understanding descriptive editing but as far as I can tell it is hopelessly inaccurate and not even remotely AI.
How many drivers that have such hands-free voice-only enabled devices own cars that have all options installed (and correctly configured by the user per all involved manufacturers) that would allow for the device to be used in the "intended mode"? Not (by far!) the majority of the driving-plus-device-using population, I suspect. Supposing that "not the majority" is indeed the case: Even if the study had been done as Siri creator states it should have been done, the results would have very little applicability for the majority of such drivers. Meanwhile,
Removing the (well deserved) Obama bashing out of your post, and you beat me to the punch. There's a real drive in certain political circles right now to protect us from something that they perceive is dangerous (cell phones anywhere near a car). Any study that will "prove" their point is worth funding.
The fact of the matter is, talking on a cell phone (even without hands free) is by far the least dangerous "distracted driving" activity that happens everywhere, all the time. For instance, eating behind the wheel is legitimately dangerous... but it has nothing to do with cell phones, it must be alright! Changing the station/CD/song in your car? Messing with the AC? Shaving? Messing with the GPS??? How about talking to someone in the backseat?!? That's more dangerous than talking on a cell phone!
There is no logic to these people, only rotten/mishandled statistics. But we have to "protect people" from themselves through legislation. Otherwise how are they ever to survive?...
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
You've never seen someone drive with their knees? I think it's very bad behavior, but it happens all... the... time.
No, seriously. I'd guess more than half of under-thirty-year-olds have used their knees to drive at one point or another, with no hands free to take the wheel.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Ships have been "she" for hundreds of years. Siri has a female voice, so people consider it a female AI.
Not a sentence!
The test is valid, but the conclusions drawn from it are utter bullshit. This study proves, not hugely surprisingly, that removing the actual typing process doesn't significantly improve the safety of drivers. What everyone has drawn from this is that hands free texting isn't safer than regular texting. That may or may not actually be the case, but this study doesn't come close to proving it one way or the other.
It's a bit like when they Mythbusters did the hands free driving stuff, the studies aren't wrong as such, but given most people don't pay have conversations requiring that level of concentration whlie driving it doesn't really prove what they tried to conclude.
given most people don't pay have conversations requiring that level of concentration whlie driving
Why are you assuming that? Is it because you like texting while driving and you want it to be legal because you think you are doing it safely? You sound like the alcoholics in the 1980s. "I haven't crashed, so I must be safe".
Anything distracting reduces safety.
Learn to love Alaska
As long as you are hands free and looking at the road I personally think that the burden of talking on a 'hands free' phone setup is no worse than talking to a passenger or listening to the radio.
What's on the radio? I know a number of people that get quite unsafely worked up from talk radio. And music on the radio takes zero effort to listen to. Most of the time the listener has heard it before, and can ignore it without losing any information. That can't be done with a phone call.
but they should be banned from having radio and passengers too
More practically, they should be banned from having a license. But that's considered political suicide, so everyone pretends everyone is capable of being a safe driver.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, it was quicker than saying "let them get away with" and everyone but pedantic ol' you seems to have gotten it.
As for the rest of it, It was a comparison of two situations, I guess you didn't get it.
If you blow off everything as a "conspiracy theory" , I guess your meds are working.
Try reading more slowly.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
What common script? Given that you've been modded down and every reply apparently doesn't get it, I don't think it's me who is the dumbshit.
Learn to love Alaska
So, what? There's plenty of idiots who mod down what they disagree with or don't understand fully. I've read your replies for months, you're right, you don't think and you're a dumbshit.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
As a trained pilot I can tell you that making radio communications when you're not thoroughly familiar with FAA phraseology can be quite distracting especially when controlling a small helicopter. I remember looking at and simply not seeing the helicopter passing right in-front of me as I talked on the radio until my instructor pulled back on the cyclic. I was looking right at where the crossing helicopter was coming from and knowing that helicopter traffic was likely to be along that route, but in reality I might was well have been fully blind at that moment, I think I more perceived just enough information to keep the aircraft attitude aka the horizon. Now it wasn't more then a possible near miss had I not seen the crossing traffic. Actually During IFR training I came even closer to a airplane flying low and violating Class D airspace. But obviously that wasn't my fault. Anyway the First incident taught me that 1. Air traffic is hard too see against the urban landscape. 2. Talking and Listen can cause you not to see what's right in-front of you.
Pilots of large complex aircraft have co-pilots - one is concentrating all the time ..
Small Aircraft are simple and the radio is hand-free and they crash quite often (they are the only type of aircraft considered to be more dangerous than driving)
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Talking on a phone is different from talking to the passenger beside you. When one talks to a remote person, the brain creates a remote environment and moves its attention to that space. I'm not sure what is going on neurologically but the effect is very strong and I don't see an easy way around the problem. Perhaps we need to create an avatar for the other party that sits beside the driver in the car.
Stupid study and stupid conclusion from the study.
It's like comparing if shooting your left foot is safer than shooting your right hand. Only a fool will consider these choices.
Admittedly, I'm an "old guy" so maybe I'm way out of touch with the times, but I'm fairly tech-savvy, well-educated, so FWIW...
I've had 4 very unsettling experiences of near head-on collisions. Each time I saw the other driver look up and get a very astonished look on their face after which they (thankfully) swerved back into their lane.
Meanwhile I was slowing down while maneuvering for safety on the shoulder or sidewalk.
I can only hope that the person who claims texting while driving is NOT a distraction has the same experience, at some point.
As far as talking on a phone is concerned, I have my doubts about that, too.
Again, this is from my personal experience, so YMMV.
I deal with a wide variety of subjects. Some of them are design-oriented. While discussing a subject re the design of something, I find myself visualizing that which I'm attempting to describe. Those are the times I've found myself vulnerable to inattentive driving. For example, I've had some close calls rear-ending other vehicles or missed my turn-off. I DO make a point of getting over to the slow lane and dropping my speed, but I've been surprised by a semi or two that had changed into my lane further up the road in front of me. I missed it because I was... distracted. So I've been guilty, too. (Apparently, something is not happening between my visual cortex and other cognitive functions. Although, my friends from the 60's would probably say... well, never mind. That's for another post.)
Now I hand my phone to my wife and ask her to take the call or exit or pull way off on the shoulder (which isn't all that safe either now-a-days). And when I get a call from someone whose name/cell number I recognize, I ask if they're driving first. I don't want to be the person on the other end of a phone call that contributed to an accident. Besides, I still think most of our phone calls can wait.
Come to think of it, I've even had people walk into me or nearly walk into me in stores while talking/texting on their phones.
Anyhow, please be careful, folks.
Oh yeah... and get off my lawn, kid.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
That's because... I think the drivers will be distracted anyway. I have a voice-controlled GPS that I was telling what to do and didn't even realize that I was distracted by it. Almost hit a mailbox. Nothing is foolproof other than devoting 100% of your attention to the road.
I'd mod you down but I went back and checked you posts, modding you down would be a waste of my points since your just as big an idiot as the gp.
You guys deserve each other.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
It's all about priorities: AVIATE, Navigate, Communicate.
Pilots and others with some level of emergency services / high stress career training know how to prioritize.
We need to increase standards to receive driver's licenses in America, and drill Aviate, Navigate, Communicate into their heads, and actually expose them to high-stress driving.
Speech-to-Text at its current level of development will absolutely make matters WORSE. Texting while driving makes drivers more stressed because of frustration: what's in my mind is not appearing on the screen and that means I have to try two or more times to get the message to show up correctly. This greatly increases my level of stress while driving, which is why I don't do it.
When I'm driving, if I feel like I am becoming stressed, I remove all distractions: the radio is turned off, the girlfriend has learned to be quiet, and I concentrate on the road. I wish everyone would behave this way.
"the Texas researchers should have tested Siri and Vlingo in car mode, where a Bluetooth headset or speakers are used..." "The study seems to have misunderstood how Siri was designed to be used," Right because ALL of the marketing shows Siri used this way.
Your reply shows you are willing to lie about what someone said to push your provably wrong opinion as fact. I've read your posts for a day, and that's all you've got.
And woo, I got my own stalker/lurker, reading me for months. Even if you think I'm an idiot, I'm apparently an interesting one, or you are an even bigger idiot.
Learn to love Alaska
A ship, yes. But not a silly app on a phone.
Umhmm, you got a stalker. Well, you're so damn special I bet you got a bunch of stalkers.
No, you pretty consistently post in articles I bother with.
Besides if someone gave a damn about your inane babble they'd just go to http://slashdot.org/~AK+Marc. I couldn't be bothered.
Mostly you just want someone to argue with. It's thawed out, go out the door and go argue.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
It's thawed? How would I know. I've pointed out a number of times that I have moved out of AK, even if I lived there when I picked my name. None of my regular pseudonyms were available, and my full name is depressingly unique, and the obsessive people here would be more likely to target someone who says something they don't like than I was willing to chance. It's fall where I am, not spring.
And my idiotic babble is usually a well reasoned retort. Even if I'm labeled inane because I spread an undesirably truth.
Learn to love Alaska
Hey, the world doesn't revolve around Alaska, we freeze and thaw here too.
Wha'd you do move to Chile?
No your idiotic babble is always your invulnerable-to-reason-unimaginative-self-absorbed opinion du jour. Your truth usually amounts to popular versions that protect your ego from the less desirable aspects of existence. It hasn't made conversation, so much as given you a faux sense of superiority.
I doubt that most of science or history would be enjoyable playgrounds for you. That leaves you with math, go figure.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Since all your guesses about me are wrong, I can only take your mis-aimed complaints as compliments. When the idiots all hate you, you are doing something right.
Learn to love Alaska
Pretty much. The point is it's diverting attention from driving, its not about the button pushes or glances off the road. How much depends on the message/conversation. A request from someone to pick up a litre of milk? Not really a problem. A request to do a job interview on the phone? (real example) I had a problem with that :(
We are here looking at a collection of interesting images, that are not inflammatory in the least, and you bring some political bullshit into the mix. What more is there to get?
I pointed out how baseless and nonsensical your ramblings are. I think it is clear that you are trying to hard. All the attributes of a good conspiracy theory. Even the fact you are here completely out of context and offtopic, like the crazy guy screaming on the corner. You even brag about your ignorance of how off topic you are. It's one thing to comment based on the summary without reading the article, it's a whole other thing to comment on presumed content that is neither in the summary nor the content of the article, simply because you want an excuse to cry to everyone about your bullshit. If how you came to the conclusion that your ramblings were appropriate here, then it's a good indication of how you formed your opinions.
I don't blow off everything as conspiracy theory. I don't mind someone with a different opinion, if it is formed on some level of rational thought, rather than on assumptions and ignorance.
Politics is part of life, I made an analogy between situations. If you are inflamed, you chose to be. Take responsibility for your thoughts and special feelings. ,only bolsters evidence before me.
If you could make no sense of what I said, take some remedial reading courses.
I make no all purpose claim of conspiracy, I just point up historical evidence I have seen and highlight it in the way it appears, draw your own conclusions, just as well as your gray matter lets you.
Don't like the way I write? Who fuckin' asked you? I never claimed to be running for some popularity contest.
If what I write sounds crazy, it's because I'm writing about something crazy.
I hate to think 98% of the population is so stupid that they will do the same thing over and over for a century and expect different results. It makes me feel like I'm on the "Planeta do los Retards". The fact that I consistently hear wimpy whinings like yours
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I'm assuming that because I've never seen anyone trying to solve math problems while driving their car through an obstacle course(or anywhere else for that matter) and when I do talk on my phone hands free, I stop listening to the person when I need to pay attention to the road. The Mythbuster's driving tests prove that you can't solidly focus on the road and solidly focus on driving simultaneously, while an interesting if not unexpected result, this doesn't actually test what people actually do and if you want to prove something is dangerous you need to actually test it.
Hands free texting may be massively dangerous, it may not, the test they did doesn't prove one way or another because it doesn't test hands free texting, it tests a slightly less involved version of hand texting.
In terms of your personal attack on me, I don't text while driving, hands free or otherwise and I wouldn't be dramatically surprised if hands free texting isn't massively safer than non hands free version, I just wish people would actually fucking test the thing they're claiming. Test people driving having ordinary conversations, test people using actual hands free, and in an ideal world actually take the results you get and extrapolate them to real driving conditions(ie, if talking on the phone hands free increases the time before you react by half a second, how often do people actually encounter circumstances where that matters and could those circumstances be dealt with better by maintaining a larger follow distance?). How many deaths does hands free talking on the phone actually cause? From what I can see looking at the road toll statistics there hasn't been any kind of significant upward movement since cell phones became popular, if anything the road toll appears to be going down.
Do I like talking on the phone when I'm driving, yes, yes I do, it makes my boring commutes less boring and allows me to keep in touch with my family that live on the other side of the world(my commute is perfectly timed for calling them). Will I consider reasonable evidence that doing so is significantly increasing my likelihood of endangering myself and/or others? Of course I will, but I won't accept another bogus study where they test circumstances which are different than anything anyone ever does then claim the end of the world based on something they didn't actually test and work to ban yet another thing. The way we're going now they'll have to ban phones, radios and other people from our cars and then we still won't actually react quickly enough, or still won't see the oncoming car, or will go apeshit bored and start daydreaming and become even less safe.
Hands free texting may be massively dangerous, it may not, the test they did doesn't prove one way or another because it doesn't test hands free texting, it tests a slightly less involved version of hand texting.
It tested the common usage, not the "ideal." The common usage of hands-free texting is distracting. I'm not sure why you are arguing over that.
The Mythbuster's driving tests prove [...]
That you assert Mythbusters "proves" anything indicates you don't know what "proves" means, and that's the root of the problem.
Learn to love Alaska
Is that the common method of hands free texting? I've never seen anyone do it(I've seen people text not hands free, but that's not what this was testing either) and the fact that holding onto your phone and looking at it is dangerous doesn't seem like a particularly revolutionary concept to me. The interesting question is "is hands free texting safer than non hands free texting? Whether people are actually doing it that way is largely beside the point when it comes to setting up legislation. In parts of Australia it is illegal to even touch your phone while driving, which makes this kind of texting already illegal, but what about legitimate hands free? Does that need to be regulated to or is it ok?
As for Mythbusters, I'd specifically mentioned it in my previous point as another example of "testing the wrong damned thing", they aren't the only people to have done this particular experiment(drive people through an obstacle course while making them have a conversation requiring detailed attention), but they're probably the example most folks have seen.
Fundamentally the point is that the headlines off this study say "Hands free texting isn't safer", but if you're holding the damned phone in your hand and pressing buttons it's not bloody hands free is it? We can have a discussion about how many people actually text hands free, or whether hands free actually works properly, but that doesn't change the fact that the "findings" of this study are both unsurprising and not what has been claimed.
I've seen lots of people texting in traffic. I've never seen anyone doing so completely hands-free. Though how would I know if I saw it? Given the numbers I've seen for texters and the number of texters I see, nobody is using hands free texting. It may not be scientific, but direct observation is sufficient to convince me.
Learn to love Alaska
You're analyzing the wrong thing, just like the original study.
We know that people text while driving and while holding the phone. We know this is relatively common. We know that this isn't particularly safe(how many accidents it actually causes I don't know). This is pretty much a done deal.
People may or may not text partially hands free, I've personally never seen anyone do it while inside the car with them, nor does it make any particular sense, I sure as hell don't push buttons on my phone to make hands free calls. Whether they do so is largely immaterial and the fact that it is not significantly safer than texting without hands free while useful from a perspective of completeness isn't hugely surprising(taking your eyes off the road is a recipe for disaster and taking a hand off the wheel is going to make responding to an emergency somewhat more difficult at best).
What we don't know is whether, assuming people text in a completely hands free manner(ie both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road), is it much than texting in the traditional manner. This is the interesting question because if it is, we can say that it is and hopefully encourage people to move towards using this technique. Banning people from touching their phones is all well and good, but given enforcement is going to be fairly minimal, getting people to stop doing what they want is going to be somewhat challenging. If on the other hand we can say to people "hey, if you use the feature your phone already has you can still text with your friends, but you can do it in a way that is X times safer, we might be able to change behavior. By saying "hands free texting is just as dangerous" especially when you haven't actually proven that, you're just saying "keep texting like you are because any change won't make things any better". People are really poor at judging low probability high impact risks, so barring a cop on every street corner or blocking texting within a vehicle for everyone, we're probably not going to stop it.
The studies show that it isn't the eyes moving off the road, but the attention moving off the road that's the problem. Your diversion to the involvement of the hands in hands-free is a red herring. Focusing attention off the road is the problem. Pointing your eyes up and at the road doesn't do you any good if your attention is on your phone and sending a message such that you aren't consciously processing your vision. They've shown that non-hand/eye activities cause levels of distraction equal to a phone call using a hand.
Learn to love Alaska