It\u2019s common knowledge that talking on a hands-free device while driving is perfectly safe, but common knowledge isn\u2019t always right.<\/p>\n
According to the Center for Disease Control, there are three main types of distraction while driving. \u201cVisual requires you to take your eyes off the road. Manual requires you to take you hands off the wheel, and cognitive involves taking your mind off of driving,\u201d according to the Center for Disease Control\u2019s website. Using a hands-free device may keep the driver visually and manually focused, but it requires him to focus his mind on something other than driving. This cognitive distraction is what makes hands-free devices dangerous while driving.<\/p>\n
According to CDC.gov, \u201cDistracted driving activities include things like using a cell phone, texting, and eating. Using in-vehicle technologies (such as navigation systems) can also be sources of distraction. While any of these distractions can endanger the driver and others, texting while driving is especially dangerous because it combines all three types of distraction.<\/p>\n
Additional information from the CDC shows that \u201c424,000 people were injured due to distracted driving in 2013, an almost 10% increase from 2011.\u201d What this statistic illustrates is troubling: the issue of distracted driving only continues to worsen.<\/p>\n
Junior Michael Miller, worried by these statistics, decided to measure the dangers of distracted driving for a project in his statistics class. \u201cAnyone could tell you how much of a problem texting and driving is,\u201d Miller said, \u201cbut most people don\u2019t understand that it\u2019s dangerous to talk on the phone while driving, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller decided to use a video game, Mario Kart, to conduct his experiment. He also used a steering wheel and pedals that connected to the gaming console for more accurate driving simulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest problem I had at first was a lack of drivers,\u201d Miller said. To have a normal distribution in a statistical experiment, a statistician must have thirty different trials, which meant Miller needed thirty different drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ended up giving the office a note,\u201d Miller said. \u201cMr. [Steve] Straessle read an announcement that promised Mario Kart to any students willing to come to room 211 after school. The turnout was pretty good at first, but a lot of people had to leave early for time purposes.\u201d At the end of the first day, Miller had only 12 trials.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried the same thing the next week, and eventually got all thirty students I needed,\u201d Miller said. One of the drivers, sophomore Ethan Pruitt, said, \u201cI used to think as long as I wasn\u2019t texting or anything then I was being safe. After taking part in Michael\u2019s experiment, I\u2019m definitely going to start paying more attention to the road when I drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
After finishing the experiment, Miller was tasked with analyzing all of the data. \u201cEach volunteer driver completed a lap of distracted driving and then a lap of non-distracted driving. I recorded the times and number of collisions.\u201d Miller also ranked how well each driver stayed on course on a scale from one to five.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was tons of data to look at,\u201d Miller said, \u201cbut I found some definite trends. When people were distracted, they had more collisions than when they weren\u2019t.\u201d A distracted driver was also far less likely to stay on course compared to a non-distracted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expected the distracted drivers to finish with much worse times, but the opposite was true.\u201d Almost every single trial resulted in a faster distracted lap. \u201cThe distracted drivers most likely sped more around sharp turns, and they didn\u2019t care about being careful or avoiding collisions,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the data came out about as we expected,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIt was nice to have some experimental confirmation of what I was thinking, but mainly I\u2019m hoping that someone out there will hear the results of my experiment and maybe think twice about using their phone in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s common knowledge that talking on a hands-free device while driving is perfectly safe, but common knowledge isn\u2019t always right. According to the Center for Disease Control, there are three main types of distraction while driving. \u201cVisual requires you to take your eyes off the road. Manual requires you to take you hands off the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":7691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[190,196,1],"tags":[184,145,143],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/distracted-driving.jpg?fit=2400%2C1467&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-1ZI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7670"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7695,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670\/revisions\/7695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}