Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/240006

Title

A comparison of the effect of mobile phone use and alcohol consumption on driving simulation performance

Author(s)

Leung, Sumie;  Croft, Rodney J.;  Jackson, Melinda L.;  Howard, Mark E.;  McKenzie, Raymond J.

Abstract

Objective: The present study compared the effects of a variety of mobile phone usage conditions to different levels of alcohol intoxication on simulated driving performance and psychomotor vigilance.Methods: Twelve healthy volunteers participated in a crossover design in which each participant completed a simulated driving task on 2 days, separated by a 1-week washout period. On the mobile phone day, participants performed the simulated driving task under each of 4 conditions: no phone usage, a hands-free naturalistic conversation, a hands-free cognitively demanding conversation, and texting. On the alcohol day, participants performed the simulated driving task at four different blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels: 0.00, 0.04, 0.07, and 0.10. Driving performance was assessed by variables including time within target speed range, time spent speeding, braking reaction time, speed deviation, and lateral lane position deviation.Results: In the BAC 0.07 and 0.10 alcohol conditions, participants spent less time in the target speed range and more time speeding and took longer to brake in the BAC 0.04, 0.07, and 0.10 than in the BAC 0.00 condition. In the mobile phone condition, participants took longer to brake in the natural hands-free conversation, cognitively demanding hands-free conversation and texting conditions and spent less time in the target speed range and more time speeding in the cognitively demanding, hands-free conversation, and texting conditions. When comparing the 2 conditions, the naturalistic conversation was comparable to the legally permissible BAC level (0.04), and the cognitively demanding and texting conversations were similar to the BAC 0.07 to 0.10 results.Conclusion: The findings of the current laboratory study suggest that very simple conversations on a mobile phone may not represent a significant driving risk (compared to legally permissible BAC levels), whereas cognitively demanding, hands-free conversation, and particularly texting represent significant risks to driving.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences. Brain Sciences Institute

Source

Traffic Injury Prevention, Vol. 13, no. 6 (2012), pp. 566-574

Publication year

2012

FOR Code(s)

0902 Automotive Engineering;  1701 Psychology

Keyword(s)

Alcohol;  Cognition;  Distractability;  Driving simulation;  Driving performance;  Mobile phones;  Simulations

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

ISSN

1538-9588

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2012.683118

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Additional information

The authors acknowledge support from the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA).

Peer reviewed