It requires little effort to blow off the “distracted driving” guidelines for automakers, published by NHTSA this week—and many have done exactly that. Sure, the government’s safety agency lays out a compelling case and ample data on the dangers of driving while talking on the phone and text messaging. And yes, there are endless details on how automakers ought to develop infotainment systems and phone integration for their cars, offering the methods for testing driver distraction during their use. But all are, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration itself emphasizes, just suggestions. Compliance by car companies is voluntary. To conclude, however, that they are meaningless—or even without teeth—would be completely wrong.
First Things First: Talking, Texting, Surfing While Driving is Extraordinarily Dangerous
We took a detailed, if anecdotal, look at this in issue about three years ago—check out our feature here—and there now exists a solid body of rigorously conducted university-level research on the dangers inherent to cell- and smartphone use while driving. Below are the findings of several different studies from the past several years. Many are surprising—even counterintuitive—but the data is there and research is continuing. Number four on our list, for example, was the finding of a Texas AM study just released just week.
While your state capitol decides whether you can use your smartphone for GPS navigation, NHTSA sets rules for car companies: how they design cars, what safety features are necessary, and how vehicle safety is evaluated. But to add enforceable rules to the thousands in the Federal Motor Vehicles Safety Standards, testing standards need to be “repeatable and reproducible.” That’s just not possible for most of these distracted driving guidelines yet, Richard Wilhelm, a prominent automotive attorney at Dickinson Wright told us. Part of the problem, he explained, is that the in-dash (and smartphone) technology is changing too rapidly to establish a set of rigid guidelines for how these systems are evaluated.
- First Drive: 2014 Jaguar F-type
- Instrumented Test: 2014 Mazda 6 i Sport
- Instrumented Test: 2013 Audi A8L 4.0T