🔍 Study Overview: My latest analysis highlights a critical safety risk: Drivers are taking their eyes off the road for too long when entering destinations into car navigation systems, significantly exceeding current guidelines.
🔐 Per Se Lockouts: To mitigate distraction risks, I support the adoption of "Per Se Lockouts" in vehicle interfaces, such as those found in Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto. These systems automatically disable certain functions, like manual destination entry, when the vehicle is in motion. It is disappointing that this is not a standard across all car manufacturers.
🎙️ Voice Commands & Favourites: To enhance safety, I advocate for broader adoption of voice command capabilities and easy access to favourite/recent destinations. These methods allow drivers to navigate without diverting their attention from the road, offering significant reductions in eyes-off-road time.
📊 Research Data: This is a preview from an extensive study: data collected from an experienced driver's best of three trials across 21 vehicles. Anticipate the full study's release soon.
🚦 Regulatory Acceleration: I urge both NHTSA and Euro NCAP to spearhead the development of clear, comprehensive safety guidelines for in-vehicle systems. Concurrently, it's crucial that regulatory bodies and lawmakers worldwide act to integrate and enforce these guidelines as mandatory components of the vehicle approval process.
🛑 Persistent Advocacy: For over six years, through numerous on-road and simulator studies, I've been advocating for a mandatory implementation of Per Se Lockouts. This latest study corroborates its critical necessity. This is not “just research”; it is a warning that demands we prioritise driver safety through improved HMI design.
👁️ Acknowledgements: A special thank you to Tobii UK for the eye-tracking technology which was instrumental in our research, allowing us to accurately measure TEORT in real-time.
📘 For Non-Automotive Readers: Total-Eyes-Off-Road-Time (TEORT) measures the cumulative duration a driver's gaze is diverted away from the road during specific tasks, such as entering a destination into a navigation system. It accounts for all instances of distraction, not just continuous periods.