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TABLE 1 World Health Organization, Mobile Phone Use: A Growing
PERCENT OF CRASHES ATTRIBUTED TO DISTRACTION TYPES Problem of Driver Distraction, 2011 [Online]. Available:
Distraction Percentage www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/road_
traffic/en/index.html.
Look for something outside the car 23
Dealing with children or other passengers 19
Reviewing worldwide road fatalities and injuries, the
report noted the risk posed by distracted driving as an
Looking for something inside the car 14 increasing concern to policymakers even while the extent
of the problem is not well known. Intended to raise aware-
Another driver 11
ness about distracted driving, the report summarizes exist-
Personal thoughts/thinking 5 ing research. It focused primarily on mobile phone use, but
also on other types of distractions. The report concluded
Looking at an animal outside of the car 3 that using a mobile phone while driving has a detrimental
Dealing with technology (primarily radio) 2 effect on driving behavior, and noted the lack of conclusive
evidence that hands-free phones are safer than hand-held
Other distractions 23 units. It further noted that text messaging while driving
results in considerable physical and cognitive distraction,
reducing driving performance. The authors concluded that
Public awareness had the highest support at 88%, followed by more research is needed to understand the degree to which
only allowing hands-free or voice-activated phones (71%), particular aspects of mobile phone use (dialing, talking, etc.)
insurance penalties for crashes that involve cell phone use contribute to driver impairment.
(67%), doubled or tripled fines for traffic violations
involving cell phone use, and a ban on cell phone use while ZoomSafer, Inc., Measuring Corporate Attitudes About
driving (57%). Employee Distracted Driving, 2011 [Online]. Available: http://
ZoomSafer.com/assets/Whitepapers/Survey-Results-White-
Smith, D.L., J. Chang, D. Cohen, J. Foley, and P. Glassco, Paper.pdf.
A Simulation Approach for Evaluating the Relative Safety
ZoomSafer, an organization that makes software to
Impact of Driver Distraction During Secondary Tasks, World
prevent distracted driving, surveyed 500 North American
Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2005.
business managers to identify corporate attitudes and best
practices related to mobile phone use among drivers. From
This study examined driver distraction and several sec-
the overall sample, which included long-haul and short-haul
ondary tasks that included:
trucking companies; construction companies; utility com-
panies; taxi, limo, and bus companies; sales and service
· Visual tasks of less than 30 s (adjusting radio, dialing a
companies; home and business services and government,
cell phone);
they found that 32% of all companies have knowledge or
· Complex visual tasks equivalent to one minute (map
evidence of their employees getting into vehicle crashes as
reading); a result of cell phone distractions. When focusing solely on
· Auditoryverbal tasks that were 12 min (listening to a trucking (long-haul and local/short-haul), findings showed
book on tape); and higher rates of cell phone-related crashes (53% and 41%,
· Driving for 2 min without additional tasks. respectively), but also higher levels of policy implementation
(71% and 83%, respectively) and enforcement (71% and
A series of different visual tasks were measured in the 59%, respectively).
study by using varying visual stimuli to determine in which
cases visual stimuli present a threat. Results demonstrated
that, as the visual task difficulty increased, the drivers tended DRIVER TASKS UNIQUE TO
to increase the amount of distance between their car and the PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS
vehicle directly in front, "falling back."
The number of studies addressing distracted driving for pro-
An additional finding was that, given similar eye glance fessional drivers is much less than that for drivers in general.
patterns of two secondary tasks, longer lasting secondary tasks Studies of most relevance to this project are summarized
present a greater crash risk. This was because the lead vehicle here. The issues can be grouped into the following topics.
was traveling at variable speeds (decelerating unexpect-
edly, etc.) and the distracted driver was less able to monitor Problem Extent--How Does Distracted Driving
following distance during longer secondary tasks. Therefore, Relate to Crash Risk for Commercial Drivers?
assuming similar eye glance patterns, as the time to com-
plete a secondary task increases a safety threat becomes Knipling et al. (2003) examined safety problem areas and
more imminent. found the top three to be at-risk driving behaviors, high-risk
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drivers, and driver health and wellness. NHTSA (2010) showed How Risky Is Text Messaging While Driving?
a smaller proportion of large truck drivers and bus drivers
who were distracted during a crash (8% and 6%, respec- The Olson et al. (2009) study noted earlier found that risk
tively) than is the case with passenger car drivers (11%); was 23 times higher when texting compared with driving
this has been a consistent finding over multiple years. The normally. This was far above the next most risky behaviors
Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS; FMCSA such as looking for objects or interacting with the dispatch-
2005) found that driver inattention was the cause in 9% of ing device.
fatal crashes, whereas 8% were the result of an external
distraction and 2% an internal distraction; these distraction
How Do Driver Practices Relate
factors made it 5.1 and 5.8 times more likely for the truck to Distraction-Related Risk?
driver to be at fault in a crash. Llaneras et al. (2005) con-
ducted interviews with truck drivers and safety regulators SmartDrive (2010) conducted a study observing 14 million
regarding aftermarket technology for trucks. Nearly one- video events from more than 34,000 drivers and found that a
half of drivers admitted to "close calls" resulting from small number of drivers represented the majority of the driver
distraction. distraction safety problem. Although 10% of safety-critical
events involved distraction, this figure was 67% for the top
5% of drivers with the highest number of distraction events.
Traditional Distraction Sources
versus Electronic Devices
Drivers with the most recorded distractions were 7.4 times
more likely to be in a crash or near a crash than drivers with
Hickman et al. (2010) examined 12 months of naturalistic the fewest recorded distractions.
truck and bus driver data based on the DriveCam video mon-
itoring tool. Nondriving-related tasks requiring more visual Section Summary
attention were found to have had the strongest association
to safety-critical events. Therefore, cell phone tasks such as A brief summary is provided here to encapsulate the preceding
dialing sharply increased the odds ratio. At the same time, discussion. Generally speaking, commercial drivers are less
talking or listening on a cell phone posed no increased risk prone to be in a distraction-related crash as compared with
and actually had a protective effect. The researchers cau- the general public. The correlation of "bad apple" commercial
tion that although these effects can be associated, cause drivers with distraction-related safety-critical events is signifi-
and effect cannot be determined because of the naturalistic cant enough to enable fleet managers to adjust hiring practices
nature of the study. Olson et al. (2009) combined data from and training. Nevertheless, distraction appears to be a cause for
two naturalistic studies, resulting in three million miles of concern for all commercial drivers. As to the source of distrac-
kinematic and video data. This team found tertiary tasks tion, researchers have found eyes-off-road to be a more com-
(i.e., tasks unnecessary to the role of driving) present in 46% pelling measure than the nature of the distraction. Relating this
to 77% of safety-critical events, noting that these are differ- to cell phones, the manual tasks are noted as risky. With respect
ent conclusions from the LTCCS. Notably, cell phone con- to hands-free phones, research findings are inconclusive.
versations plus CB radio use was found to be protective. As Notably, texting is especially risky. Regarding job-related elec-
with Hickman et al. (2010), it was concluded that the mean tronics, lock-out features are increasingly available to fleets.
duration of eyes-off-road were associated with the severity
of a safety-critical event. SmartDrive (2010) examined the
Citation Summary
most prevalent types of distractions during risky driving
maneuvers, finding that having an object in hand rates high- American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) and
est (44%), with cell phone-talking in second place (13%). Gartner G2, Inc., Trucking Technology Survey Results Sum-
Llaneras et al. (2005) assessed specific devices, finding that mary, ATRI, Arlington, Va., 2003.
multifunctional devices were viewed favorably by respon-
dents. These can be locked out while the vehicle is in Onboard technology offers motor carriers insight into in-
motion if the fleet chooses; however, there is wide vari- cab activities and driver (and vehicle) performance. According
ability as to the use of this feature. Although interactive tech- to a survey of 150 motor carriers, improved safety is the num-
nologies alert drivers of developing situations and can be ber one reason carriers choose to deploy such technologies.
potentially distracting to drivers, three FMCSA-sponsored And, although a very small proportion of carriers reported
studies (Murray et al. 2009a,b,c) found significant net safety installing onboard safety systems in that survey, adoption of
benefits for active safety systems [forward collision warning in-vehicle technologies has certainly grown as the novelty has
(FCW), lane departure warning (LDW), roll stability control worn off and the benefits have been demonstrated.
(RSC)]. This finding is bolstered by the American Trans-
portation Research Institute (ATRI) (2003) in which carriers FMCSA, The Large Truck Crash Causation Study Summary
surveyed noted safety as the prime motivation for deploying Report, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Wash-
such systems. ington, D.C., 2005.
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The FMCSA and NHTSA conducted the LTCCS by inves- Knipling, R., J. Hickman, and G. Bergoffen, CTBSSP Syn-
tigating a nationally representative sample of 963 large truck thesis 1: Effective Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Man-
crashes that occurred between April 2001 and December 2003. agement Techniques, Transportation Research Board of the
National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2003.
The investigations determined that truck driver inatten-
tion was a causal factor (as opposed to an associated factor) This synthesis report provides a summary of safety man-
in just 9% of fatal truck crashes; however, inattention made agement techniques in commercial truck and bus transporta-
it 17.1 times more likely that a crash would be attributed to tion. Twenty safety problem areas and 28 safety management
the truck (as opposed to a passenger vehicle or other factor). techniques were identified through a literature review, discus-
Meanwhile, 8% of crashes were attributed to truck driver sions and interviews with industry experts, and suggestions
external distraction (outside the cab) and 2% were attributed from the TRB synthesis panel. Problem areas included both
to truck driver internal distraction (inside the cab); respec- driver and vehicle issues, and safety management techniques
tively, these distraction factors made it 5.1 and 5.8 times ranged from driver recruiting and selection to advanced safety
more likely for the truck to be at fault in a crash. technologies.
Hickman, J., R. Hanowski, and J. Bocanegra, Distraction in A questionnaire was distributed to fleet safety managers
Commercial Trucks and Buses: Assessing Prevalence and and other industry safety experts through several trade asso-
Risk in Conjunction with Crashes and Near-crashes, Report ciations and industry-related professional organizations to
No. FMCSA-RRR-10-049, Federal Motor Carrier Safety assess their relative importance. The top three problem areas
Administration, Washington, D.C., 2010. for safety manager respondents were found to be at-risk driving
behaviors (e.g., speeding and tailgating), high-risk drivers (all
This study analyzed 12 months of naturalistic truck and
causes combined), and driver health and wellness. The three
bus driver data provided by DriveCam, whose onboard safety
most common management techniques practiced by safety
monitoring systems record videos of drivers and data from
managers were continuous tracking of drivers' crashes, inci-
kinematic sensors on safety-related events. One data set
dents, and violations; regularly scheduled vehicle inspec-
included data wherein kinematic sensors were activated by
tions and maintenance; and hiring based on criteria related to
nonsafety-triggered events (e.g., driving over train tracks) to
driver crash, violation, or incident history. Each of these tech-
serve as a baseline in calculating odds ratios. This data set
niques was practiced by 90% or more of the safety manager
included safety-triggered events and baseline events from
respondents.
183 truck and bus fleets with 13,306 trucks and buses. Con-
cerning safety events, there were 1,085 crashes, 8,375 near
crashes, and 30,661 crash-relevant conflicts in the data set, Based on the survey results and reviewed literature, four
compared with 211,171 baseline (nonsafety) events. "safety opportunity areas" were selected for further research
and discussion: driver health, wellness, and lifestyle; high
Tertiary tasks (i.e., tasks unnecessary to the role of driving) risk drivers; behavioral safety management; and safety man-
were found to have the strongest association to safety-critical agement professionalism. Several opportunities to improve
events when they demanded more visual attention. Therefore, safety were identified for each area:
concerning cell phones, while talking or listening on a hands-
free cell phone posed no increased risk (and actually had a · Driver health, wellness, and lifestyle
protective effect), reaching for a phone (or headset or earpiece) Motor carrier wellness programs.
or dialing, texting, e-mailing, or using the Internet sharply · High risk drivers
increased the odds of a safety-critical event. Predicting crash rate based on past behaviors, and
Intervention programs.
A strength of naturalistic studies is the high ecological · Behavioral safety management
validity, which cannot be easily replicated through simulator Self-management programs,
studies. A weakness, however, is that, because no variables Driver incentive programs,
are being manipulated, cause-and-effect inferences cannot be Safety placards, and
made. That is, observation only revealed an increased asso- On-board recording.
ciation between tertiary tasks with visual components and · Safety management professionalism
safety-critical event occurrence. Pertaining more specifically Certification of fleet safety practices, and
to this study, another caveat is that the base rates of unwanted Certification of safety managers.
tertiary behaviors were likely much lower than would be
found in the general population, because drivers knew their Llaneras, R.E., J.P. Singer, and R. Bowers-Carnahan, Assess-
behaviors were being monitored and were working for carri- ment of Truck Driver Distraction Problem and Research
ers who were safety conscious enough to install the onboard Needs, Report No. DOT HS 809883, National Highway Traf-
safety monitoring devices. fic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C., 2005.
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The researchers interviewed truck drivers and safety regula- policies was contingent on enforcement and consistently
tors to learn more about available original equipment manufac- applied rules (with penalties for noncompliance), whereas
turers (OEM) and aftermarket technology options for trucks. the key to limiting distraction from in-vehicle devices rested
Most research on driver distraction focuses on light vehicles, on enhanced designs and interfaces and reasonably applied
yet trucks are often the quickest to adopt new technologies. restrictions and lock outs.
Additionally, findings from driver distraction research con-
cerning passenger vehicles may not be fully applicable to the Murray, D., S. Shackelford, and A. Houser, Analysis of Ben-
trucking industry, owing to myriad differences in the types efits and Costs of Forward Collision Warning Systems for
of in-vehicle devices, device placement and design, or other the Trucking Industry, Publication FMCSA-RRT-09-021,
factors associated with the nature of being a professional FMCSA, U.S.DOT, Washington, D.C., 2009a.
driver (e.g., skill, experience, and judgment). Interviewed
drivers and safety personnel were optimistic that profes- Murray, D., S. Shackelford, and A. Houser, Analysis of
sional truck drivers make smart decisions regarding when Benefits and Costs of Lane Departure Warning Systems for
and when not to use in-cab technology, although this was the Trucking Industry, Publication FMCSA-RRT-09-022,
highly subjective and nearly half of the drivers still admitted FMCSA, U.S.DOT, Washington, D.C., 2009b.
to experiencing a "close call" resulting from distraction.
Murray, D., S. Shackelford, and A. Houser, Analysis of
The authors also used task analysis to critically examine a Benefits and Costs of Roll Stability Control Systems for
variety of available in-truck devices and gauge the quality of the Trucking Industry, Publication FMCSA-RRT-09-020,
their human factors design as it pertains to minimizing driver FMCSA, U.S.DOT, Washington, D.C., 2009c.
distraction. Devices included telematic systems, safety and
warning devices, and navigation and fleet management sys- Although interactive technologies alert drivers of devel-
tems, such as the following: oping situations and can be potentially distracting to drivers
[e.g., forward collision warning system (FCWS) and lane
· AutoVue Lane Departure Warning System departure warning system (LDWS)], it is likely that their
· Bendix X-Vision (night vision system) net effect is to increase safety. These three studies spon-
· Delphi Truck Productivity Computer (multifunctional sored by FMCSA discovered significant benefits as a result
device, similar to the AutoPC) of deploying safety systems. In one study, it was determined
· Eaton Vorad and Smart Cruise (Adaptive Cruise Control) that FCWS, if used nationally on all fleets, would prevent
· Freightliner Driver Message Center between 8,597 and 18,013 rear-end crashes, reducing annual
· Freightliner Rollover Stability Advisor injuries by 6,303 and fatalities by 103. LDWS was found
· Global T-Fleet communications and tracking system to offer similar benefits, with the potential to prevent thou-
· Mack VIP display (multifunctional message center) sands of sideswipes, rollovers, and head-on collisions,
· MobileMax communications system (text messaging) with an annual reduction of 1,973 injuries and 100 fatali-
· Mobiuss TTS Onboard Computer ties. Finally, RSC systems were found capable of prevent-
· PACCAR Driver Message Center ing between 1,422 and 2,037 rollovers each year, reducing
· People Net Wireless Fleet Solutions the number of injuries by 1,322 and deaths by 73. For each
· Qualcomm Fleet Advisor and MvPC (text-messaging) $1 spent on deploying FCWS, LDWS, and RSCs, a return-
· VDO FM System on-investment of $1.93, $1.98, and $2.33 could be expected,
· Volvo Driver Information Display and Volvo Link (text respectively, with initial investments recouped within 6 to
messaging). 37 months.
Multifunctional devices appeared to be particularly com- Olson, R.L., R.J. Hanowski, J.S. Hickman, and J. Bocanegra,
mon in the industry, and having systems that offered both Driver Distraction in Commercial Vehicle Operations, Report
text messaging and driver communication functions topped No. FMCSA-RRR-09-042, Federal Motor Carrier Safety
the list, both for OEM and aftermarket products. As proactive Administration, Washington, D.C., 2009.
steps toward limiting distraction, many systems are customiz-
able so that fleet safety managers can decide if they want to The researchers combined data from two naturalistic stud-
(completely or partially) lock out certain functions or, in ies to identify 4,452 safety-critical events and 19,888 base-
the case of messaging systems, send messages with differ- line events among 203 commercial motor vehicle (CMV)
ent levels of urgency and only allow the driver to read emer- drivers from 55 trucks belonging to 7 different fleets. In total
gency messages while the vehicle is in motion. Despite these there were 3 million miles of continuously collected kine-
options, it varies widely between and even within fleets matic and video data. Tertiary tasks were determined to be
whether these lock-out capabilities are utilized. Finally, inter- present in 46.2% to 77.5% of the safety-critical events, lead-
views revealed that banning technology is viewed as impracti- ing to notably different conclusions from the LTCCS. Risk
cal and unwarranted, whereas the effectiveness of policies was especially elevated when drivers performed highly com-
prohibiting the use of in-vehicle devices while driving is also plex tertiary tasks, such as text messaging or taking their eyes
questionable. Interviewees argued that effectiveness of these off the road to rummage through a grocery bag (see Table 2).
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TABLE 2
ODDS RATIOS AND 95% CONFIDENCE INTERVALS TO ASSESS LIKELIHOOD OF
A SAFETY-CRITICAL EVENT WHILE ENGAGING IN TERTIARY TASKS
Task Odds Ratio LCL UCL
Text message on cell phone 23.24* 9.69 55.73
Other--Complex Tertiary Task (e.g., cleaning side mirror, rummaging 10.07* 3.10 32.71
through a grocery bag)
Interact with/look at dispatching device 9.93* 7.49 13.16
Write on pad, notebook, etc. 8.98* 4.73 17.08
Use calculator 8.21* 3.03 22.21
Look at map 7.02* 4.62 10.69
Use/reach for other electronic device (e.g., video camera, 2-way radio) 6.72* 2.74 16.44
Dial cell phone 5.93* 4.57 7.69
Other--Moderate Tertiary Task (e.g., opening a pill bottle to take medicine, 5.86* 2.84 12.07
exercising in the cab)
Personal grooming 4.48* 2.01 9.97
Read book, newspaper, paperwork, etc. 3.97* 3.02 5.22
Put on/remove/adjust sunglasses or reading glasses 3.63* 2.37 5.58
Reach for object in vehicle 3.09* 2.75 3.48
Look back in sleeper berth 2.30* 1.30 4.07
Adjust instrument panel 1.25* 1.06 1.47
Talk or listen to hand-held phone 1.04 0.89 1.22
Eat 1.01 0.83 1.21
Remove/adjust jewelry 1.68 0.44 6.32
Other--Simple Tertiary Task (e.g., opening and closing driver's door) 2.23 0.41 12.20
Put on/remove/adjust hat 1.31 0.69 2.49
Use chewing tobacco 1.02 0.51 2.02
Put on/remove/adjust seat belt 1.26 0.60 2.64
Talk/sing/dance with no indication of passenger 1.05 0.90 1.22
Smoking-related behavior--cigarette in hand or mouth 0.97 0.82 1.14
Drink from a container 0.97 0.72 1.30
Interact with or look at other occupant(s) 0.35* 0.22 0.55
Talk or listen to hands-free phone 0.44* 0.35 0.55
Bite nails/cuticles 0.45* 0.28 0.73
Look at outside vehicle, animal, person, object, or undetermined 0.54* 0.50 0.60
Talk or listen to CB radio 0.55* 0.41 0.75
Smoking-related behavior--reaching, lighting, extinguishing 0.60* 0.40 0.89
Other personal hygiene 0.67* 0.59 0.75
Asterisk indicates a significant odds ratio.
