Cell phone users drive like old folks

Feb 06, 2005

If you have been stuck in traffic behind a motorist yakking on a cellular phone, a new University of Utah study will sound familiar: When young motorists talk on cell phones, they drive like elderly people, moving and reacting more slowly and increasing their risk of accidents. "If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone. It’s like instantly aging a large number of drivers," says David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the study. Frank Drews, as assistant professor of psychology and study co-author, adds: "If you want to act old really fast, then talk on a cell phone while driving."





In addition, "there was also a twofold increase in the number of [simulated] rear-end collisions when drivers were conversing on cell phones," the study says.

Driving to Distraction: How the New Study was Performed

Strayer and his colleagues are widely known for their 2001 study showing that hands-free cell phones are just as distracting as hand-held cell phones, and for a 2003 study showing that the reason is "inattention blindness," in which motorists can look directly at road conditions but not really see them because they are distracted by a cell phone conversation. The research has called into question legislative efforts by various states to ban motorists from using handheld but not hands-free cell phones.



Then the psychologists had the young and older study participants "drive" in a high-tech driving simulator. Participants in the simulator used dashboard instruments, steering wheel and brake and gas pedals from a Ford Crown Victoria sedan, surrounded by three screens showing freeway scenes and traffic, including a "pace car" that intermittently hit its brakes 32 times as it appeared to drive in front of study participants. If a participant failed to hit their own brakes, they eventually would rear-end the pace car.


Thirty times each second, the simulator measured the participants’ driving speed, following distance and – if applicable – how long it took them to hit the brakes and how long it took them to regain speed. Those factors "have been shown to affect the likelihood and severity of rear-end collisions," Strayer and Drews wrote.

The Findings: Age and Cell Phone Use Impair Drivers

The study found that:


-- Compared with drivers who did not talk on cell phones, those who used a cell phone while driving were slower to hit the brakes, had a longer following distance and took longer to regain speed . This was true of both young and old drivers. "Once drivers on cell phones hit the brakes, it takes them longer to get back into the normal flow of traffic," Strayer says. "The net result is they are impeding the overall flow of traffic."


-- When elderly drivers used cell phones, their reaction times got worse, but not as bad as had been expected. Previous research "suggested older people should have been really messed up if you put them on a cell phone because, not only are they slower overall due to age, but there’s a difficulty dividing attention that should make using a cell phone much more difficult for them than for young people," Strayer said. Yet the study "suggests older adults do not suffer a significantly greater penalty for talking on a cell phone while driving than do their younger counterparts," Strayer and Drews wrote.


Crashing While Talking




"Older drivers were slightly less likely to get into accidents than younger drivers," Strayer says. "Why? They tend to have a greater following distance. Their reactions are impaired, but they are driving so cautiously they were less likely to smash into somebody," although in real life, "older drivers are significantly more likely to be rear-ended" because of their slow speed.


That is statistically significant and provides "clear evidence that drivers using a cell phone were more likely to be involved in a collision than when these same drivers were not using a cell phone," the psychologists wrote.

Explore further: Scientists seen as competent but not trusted by Americans

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