Word: celle
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...given time, as many as one in 10 drivers are talking on their cell phones behind the wheel, say researchers at the University of Utah Traffic Lab. These distracted drivers not only pose a safety hazard, but, as new data suggests, they may be slowing down your commute...
Drivers on cell phones, even on hands-free devices, travel more slowly than other drivers, are less likely to pass sluggish vehicles and ultimately take longer to complete their commute - researchers estimate that such distracted drivers lengthen the average car commute by about 5% to 10%. That amounts to only a few extra minutes a day, but those minutes add up. Say your hour-long commute were cut by 10% a day - or 6 mins. - in each direction; the savings would translate to an entire weekend of free time a year. An additional 30 to 50 hours of yearly commuting...
...high-density traffic, and were told to obey the 65 mph speed limit and use turn signals; some were allowed to talk on their hands-free phones. The study was designed so that traffic would periodically slow in one lane, while another lane opened up. Researchers found that cell-phone users switched to faster-moving lanes about 20% less frequently than other drivers. They were less adept at keeping up with traffic flow, and it took them 2% to 3% longer to complete the commute than drivers who weren't distracted by cell phones...
Driving while talking into a cell phone is sort of like driving with one eye closed - studies suggest that your brain processes only half of the visual information it receives. So obstacles like pedestrians and swerving cars may go unregistered by the distracted driver. The effect is the same whether you use a handset or a hands-free phone, but, interestingly, listening to the radio or engaging in conversation with a fellow passenger isn't nearly as distracting. "There is something about talking on the phone that trips up the brain," says David Strayer, the study's author...
...busy generating mental images that may interfere with spatial codes necessary for driving. Another theory holds that we're overtapping our brain capacity by attempting two challenging tasks - having a conversation and driving a car - simultaneously. "The requirements to both listen carefully and respond while on a cell phone creates 'interference' with the task at hand, driving in this case, and our research shows that we have limited cognitive resources to multitask," says Arthur Kramer, director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at the University of Illinois. When demand for our "neural resources" exceeds supply, the result is decreased performance - scanning...