“It is commonplace knowledge, but for some reason it is not getting into the public conscience that the safest thing to do while driving is to focus on the road.” These are the words of graduate student Mayank Rehani who works with Yagesh Bhambhani, a University of Alberta Professor in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine.
After Alberta introduced legislation banning the use of handheld, but not hands-free, cell phones while driving Rehani and Bhambhani decided to conduct a study to see whether hands-free use was safer. The result of the study was that drivers who talk using a hands-free cellular device made significantly more driving errors than drivers who were not using a cell phone.
These errors included crossing the center line, speeding and changing lanes without signalling. This increase in driver errors also corresponded with a spike in the driver’s heart rate and brain activity.
To determine the effect of hands-free cell phone use on the brain, the researchers used near infrared spectroscopy. Twenty-six participants completed a driving course using a Virage VS500M driving simulator.
A significant increase in brain activity was observed in the participants while they were talking on a hands-free device. Increased oxyhemoglobin in the brain, along with a simultaneous drop in deoxyhemoglobin, indicated enhanced neuronal activation during hands-free cell phone use. According to Bhambhani, “The findings also indicated that blood flow to the brain is significantly increased during hands-free telecommunication in order to meet the oxygen demands of the neurons under the ‘distracted’ condition.”
The researchers hope that this novel finding will become part of a larger body of research which explains the safety implications of using hands-free devices while driving. Certainly, many policy makers will take an interest in such research when determining whether cell phone use should be permitted while driving.
Even though this shouldn’t be news, and really shouldn’t require elaborate scientific testing, it seems that drivers won’t admit to the danger of using cell phones, or other electronic devices while driving unless someone definitively proves that it’s harmful. Consequently, we must invest in scientific research to show what changes occur in humans when driving and using a cell phone, and ultimately why those changes are harmful.
If something is common knowledge, and based on common sense, why is it necessary to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt? Why can’t drivers simply base their driving decisions on whatever results in the safest way to operate a motor vehicle?
The reasons probably vary from one individual to another, but they all have one thing in common: they are putting their own convenience ahead of the safety and welfare of the other people they are sharing the road with. Convenience is more important to them than saving human lives.
Everyone knows that distracted driving leads to many accidents. It is the primary reason drivers don’t see cyclists and pedestrians who happen to be in their path. They are looking elsewhere, and when they do injure someone through their negligence, they fall back on the lame excuse that the accident wasn’t their fault since they didn’t see the party they harmed.
Many lives could be saved if drivers would just admit to the importance of focusing solely on the road while operating a motor vehicle. But, many of them like to think that they are in some way superior to the average person.
They believe that they have a special ability which allows them to multitask while driving. Only other people can’t do two things at once, not them.
Will people who perceive themselves as being outside the norm, and in some way superior to the average person, be willing to accept scientific evidence showing adverse changes in their brains? Or will they reject this the way they reject the notion that they are just as susceptible as anyone else to poor decision making when their minds are somewhere other than on the road?
Denial is a strong force when people want to do something. Scolding them, educating them and punishing them may not change their behavior because they see what they are doing as advantageous to them, so they don’t want anyone to tell them to stop.
Scientific studies are a good idea. They expose the truth and make it easier to hold drivers accountable for their actions when such information becomes publicly available — and they choose to ignore it.
Unfortunately, scientific facts will probably end up being more useful in doling out punishment than as a deterrent. Many innocent drivers, cyclists and pedestrians will be harmed before scientific evidence showing how distracted driving effects the brain will have an impact on laws and behavior.
It would be so much easier if people would put the welfare of others ahead of their own interests. But human nature makes many humans self-centered to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps it is a matter of survival, or of individuality, or of selfishness. In any event, this mindset will result in lost and shattered lives through unnecessary, avoidable accidents, which everyone involved will regret.
