By R. Bruce Wright
“Driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes and near-crashes," according to a landmark research report released today by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event.” So says the report summary from the most recent and most detailed study of driver behavior ever conducted by these organizations.
Synebar Solutions has reported in the past that the typical distribution system suffers more claims from vehicle operations than from any other function within the business. We have also said that we believe that when you dig into the facts, driver inattention frequently lies at the bottom of many of these events. So, why are we beating this drum again? Because this new study makes it clear that driver distractions lead directly to vehicle accidents!
This new research offers a level of detail never before available about real world driver behaviors, and the consequences of those behaviors. Researchers installed monitoring equipment in 100 vehicles and then analyzed the data collected from these vehicles over an entire year of driving. During that time the vehicles were driven nearly 2,000,000 miles, and the 241 different drivers of the vehicles were involved in 82 crashes, 761 near crashes, and 8,295 critical incidents. “The huge database developed through this breakthrough study is enormously valuable in helping us to understand—and prevent—motor vehicle crashes,” said Dr. Tom Dingus, director of VTTI.
Data collection used automatic collision detection systems with Doppler radar, video recording cameras, and GPS devices. The video units provided views forward and rearward from the car and views of both the instrument panel and the driver’s face. The report describes the equipment this way:
The 100-Car Study instrumentation package was engineered by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) to be rugged, durable, expandable, and unobtrusive… the system consisted of a Pentium-based computer that receives and stores data from a network of sensors distributed around the vehicle. Data storage was achieved via the system’s hard drive, which was large enough to store data for several weeks of driving before requiring data downloading. Each of the sensing subsystems in the car was independent so any failures that occurred were constrained to a single sensor type. Sensors included: a vehicle network box that interacted with the vehicle network, an accelerometer box that obtained longitudinal and lateral kinematic information, a headway detection system to provide information on leading or following vehicles, side obstacle detection to detect lateral conflicts, an incident box to allow drivers to flag incidents for the research team, a video-based lane-tracking system to measure lane-keeping behavior, and video to validate any sensor-based findings. The video subsystem was particularly important as it provided a continuous window into the happenings in and around the vehicle. This subsystem included five camera views monitoring the driver’s face and driver side of the vehicle, the forward view, the rear view, the passenger side of the vehicle, and an over-the-shoulder view for the driver’s hands and surrounding areas. An important feature of the video system is that it was digital with software-controllable video compression capability. This allowed synchronization, simultaneous display, and efficient archiving and retrieval of 100-Car Study data … subsystems included: automatic collision notification that informed the research team of the possibility of a collision; cellular communications that were used by the research team to communicate with vehicles on the road to determine system status and position; system initialization equipment that automatically controlled system status; and a Global Positioning System (GPS) subsystem that collected information on vehicle position. The GPS subsystem and the cellular communications were often used in concert to allow for vehicle localization and tracking.
Obviously, this was a high tech project that didn’t rely on surveys and self-reporting of behaviors. It also avoided the interference effects of an “on-board” observer.
One important finding of the study was that in 13 of 14 cases (93%) of the observed “lead vehicle” crashes (the first car to strike something in front of it), inattention to the road ahead was a factor, and was also a factor in 68% of the near crashes of this type. And, the primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness. “This important research illustrates the potentially dire consequences that can occur while driving distracted or drowsy. It’s crucial that drivers always be alert when on the road,” said Jacqueline Glassman, acting administrator of NHTSA. The graph below shows the effect of various sources of distraction on the frequency of crashes, near crashes and incidents.
Key findings of the study included:
- Drowsiness increases a driver’s risk of a crash or near-crash by at least a factor of four, and perhaps more since drowsy driving may be significantly under-reported in police crash investigations.
- The most common distraction for drivers is the use of cell phones. Although the number of crashes and near-crashes attributable to dialing is nearly identical to the number associated with talking or listening, dialing is clearly more dangerous since the time devoted to it is much less than that devoted to talking/listening.
- Reaching for a moving object increased the risk of a crash or near-crash by 9 times; looking at an external object by 3.7 times; reading by 3 times; applying makeup by 3 times; dialing a hand-held device (typically a cell phone) by almost 3 times; and talking or listening on a hand-held device by 1.3 times.
- Drivers who engage frequently in distracting activities are more likely to be involved in an inattention-related crash or near-crash. Additionally, drivers are often unable to predict when it is safe to look away from the road to multi-task because the situation can change abruptly leaving the driver no time to react even when looking away from the forward roadway for only a brief time.
What does this imply for your fleet? If your drivers are typical, they may be asked to handle a radio, a cell phone, carry one or more passengers, and refer to paper work while they drive. They may also be smoking, drinking canned or bottled beverages, and even eating while doing so. If they are “on-call” responders they may be expected to do all this in the middle of the night, long after most of us are sound asleep. Wow, no wonder fleet losses are high! Driving is a complex and interactive task that we all take for granted, despite the degree of difficulty and danger it presents.
It is important for you to make choices, set rules and enforce them, rather than leaving your drivers to figure it out themselves. (If you aren't sure you need to do this, please review #4 above!) Every company should have clear guidelines for drivers, spelling out just what tasks they are permitted to undertake while driving, and what should only be done while stopped. Review your vehicle operations guidelines to see what they have to say about cell phones and wireless devices, what they require with respect to eating and drinking while driving, and how “on call” work and workers are assigned. If you have no rules, consider addressing these issues. Several co-ops we visit have decided to use 2-man crews for after-hours trouble calls. Yes, it costs twice in wages, but if it prevents just one bucket rollover, a policy like this will have paid its way for decades!
A wealth of additional information is available on the NHTSA Web site, www.nhtsa.dot.gov.