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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.''"
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.
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
Siri reads back the text by default if you're in the eyes-free mode. But her text-to-speech isn't always easy to understand, so it's hard to tell sometimes if she got it right.
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.
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.
People un-used to city traffic probably DO have to concentrate 100% on driving.
However this is not the norm for most people. You can drive down the freeway in light to moderate traffic and not have much of your conscious brain involved at all. You can arrive at your destination and not recall a single thing about the trip.
In anything but rush hour traffic or high density traffic on a crowded freeway, driving simply isn't that difficult. If it was, we wouldn't hand out driving licenses to anyone with a pulse. Because an awfully large percentage of people just don't have 100% to devote to the task.
There are times when everyone has to pay attention. But the vast majority of my driving, and probably most people's driving, can be managed almost automatically, leaving plenty of time to listen to the radio, or the person on the next seat, or the person on the bluetooth.
Anyone who claims you have to devote 100% of your faculties to driving probably doesn't drive much.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I'll agree that most of a trip you feel like you're on autopilot the problem arises when something unexpected happens. If you have your eyes off the road when that unexpected happens you're a lot worse off than had you been paying attention. So yeah if you get to your destination safely then you can look back and say man that didn't take any conscious effort at all but that's not why you need to pay attention. You need to be on your toes for when something novel or out of the ordinary happens.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
" 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.
Um, yes you are. Infinity, as far as the human eye is concerned, is anything beyond about 20 feet, so except when you're looking in your mirrors (which you really don't need to do constantly, just occasionally), your eyes are almost always going to be at infinity while driving. Anything short of that means you're following too close behind the car in front of you.
First, that's the opposite of ludditism, which means rejection of technology, not rejection of scientific knowledge. Second, you can have my car radio when you pry it with a crowbar from my cold, dead dashboard. You can't eliminate all distractions, and it is stupid to try.
The goal of any driving-related safety improvements should be to minimize the distraction without being so invasive that people work around whatever solution you put in place. Passing laws against texting causes people to hide their phones while they text, resulting in them looking down even farther from the road, and thus driving even more dangerously. Driving modes that prevent visually reviewing your text messages don't help either, because most people don't want to send out text messages that make them look functionally illiterate, as is often the case with voice dictation under even the best conditions (which a noisy automobile ain't). Using HUDs, by contrast, can dramatically decrease the risk of sending a single text message, mitigating it so much that for the sane 99.9% of drivers who would use such things fairly infrequently, the additional risk of texting in that manner is likely to be lost in the statistical noise.
But of course, the best choice of all is to get the meatbag out from behind the wheel in the first place. That not only eliminates all risk from distractions, but also eliminates all risk from fatigue, illness, sudden cardiac arrest, seizures, sweat getting in your eyes, and probably hundreds of other risk factors.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
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