In response to the growing threat of in-car driver distraction, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) today released guidelines for vehicle controls that operate in-car electronics. The automaker guidelines spell out steps to help driver’s focused on the roads, rather than complicated dashboards. Compliance is voluntary, without potential penalties or a ratings system to aid enforcement.
“We recognize that vehicle manufacturers want to build vehicles that include the tools and conveniences expected by today’s American drivers,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. “The guidelines we’re proposing would offer real-world guidance to automakers to help them develop electronic devices that provide features consumers want—without disrupting a driver’s attention or sacrificing safety.”
Developing guidelines to reduce distraction from the wide array of available vehicle controls is a challenge. New technologies are entering the market faster than the research can be done to determine their risks. Drawing from both existing scientific studies and previous voluntary guidelines, these NHTSA guidelines provide a productive first step in addressing driver distraction from the vehicle’s controls.
Creating mandatory regulations would have been a difficult task. Although there is agreement that distraction causes a danger, it is difficult to assign the cost from accidents or the benefit from regulation. Also, technologies shift quicker than the wheels of legislation turn. Voluntary guidelines provide a quicker and more flexible way of encouraging improvements.
The guidelines focus on non-essential elements for operating the vehicle, including audio, navigation, and information systems. Instruments and climate controls were considered essential controls and have been left out of the guidelines. We think that might have been an oversight as these controls have been integrated into complicated touchscreens or menu-driven systems in some models.
The Phase I guidelines include recommendations to:
- Reduce complexity and task length required by the device
- Limit device operation to one hand only (leaving the other hand to remain on the steering wheel to control the vehicle)
- Limit individual off-road glances required for device operation to no more than two seconds in duration
- Limit unnecessary visual information in the driver’s field of view
- Limit the amount of manual inputs required for device operation.
The guidelines call for key controls to require fewer than six steps. This strikes us as still more steps—and therefore time attention is away from the road—than should be necessary for common functions. And those that are less commonly used, we think, should be limited while driving and/or controlled by voice.
Further, the guidelines call for disabling while driving: text messaging, Internet browsing, social media browsing, navigation system destination entry by address, manual phone dials, and displaying more than 30 characters of text unrelated to driving. Some of these functions can instead be performed by voice controls that keep your eyes on the road.
If the automakers follow these overall guides, we feel the roads would be safer. But NHTSA agrees that there are still opportunities to address other risks, such as the use of “nomadic devices” that are brought into the car, like smart phones or tablet computers. They will be addressed in the next phase of this effort. A subsequent phase will address the design of voice command systems and their cognitive demands.
Other challenges remain. There is no means for consumers to know if a car adheres to this standard, such as a rating system. Plus, success for this initiative will be hard to track, as research depends on knowing the driver’s actions and distractions during an accident. That said, we feel this initiative it is well-worth pursuing and will gain strength with additional guidelines in the future.
Due to the rapid pace of new device development, and the lagging pace of research, true enforceable regulations would quickly date. Therefore, we feel these guidelines are an important first step to reeling in the proliferation of new distractions being introduced in today’s cars.
In the end, the final responsibility rests with consumer to operate vehicle safely—and resist the temptation to engage in distracting behavior.
Related:
Distracted driving special section
Connected cars: A new risk
Car controls gone wild
Video: Discussion panel featuring Transportation Secretary LaHood on distracted driving
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Federal government proposes guidelines to reduce distracted driving from vehicle controls