leeched from NYTimes, Acura RL get some free press

-----
ETROIT, Nov. 25 - Darrow Zeidenstein talks to his 2005 Acura RL, and it listens, answering him in a soft voice that guides him to a gas station or the nearest A.T.M. "You can say, find bank, find A.T.M., find gas station," Mr. Zeidenstein said. And the car readily complies.
Mr. Zeidenstein, an associate vice president at Rice University, can also tell his Acura RL to make phone calls for him, and the car will direct his cellphone to dial. He can have a conversation without ever having to lift a finger.

These high-technology gadgets in the Acura RL reflect a growing trend in the automobile industry to design cars so that drivers do not have to take their hands off the steering wheel.

Automakers, their suppliers and cellphone manufacturers are pitching hands-free technology as a safe way to rein in the expanding clutter of gadgetry that can leave drivers grabbing for everything but the steering wheel.

But how safe are these devices, really? According to early evidence, probably not as much as you think.

Some states endorse the trend. Florida, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C., have passed laws banning hand-held cellphones, requiring drivers to use headsets, speaker phones or phones built into their car. But federal regulators, consumer advocates and some independent safety researchers are concerned that hands-free technology may give a false sense of security.

A recent study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests that drivers who use hands-free cellphone adapters are actually no safer behind the wheel than drivers who hold the phone with one hand and steer with the other.

"Our focus is on trying to understand what the combined effect may be on overall driving performance," said Joseph Kanianthra, the associate administrator for vehicle safety research at the highway safety administration. "If these technologies keep coming into the vehicles, how well are drivers able to cope?"

Driver distractions, which include everything from eating to talking on cellphones to changing radio stations, play a role in 25 percent to 30 percent of automobile crashes, according to the highway safety administration. With 163 million cellphone subscribers nationwide, and many of them taking their cellphone conversations into the car, safety experts are concerned that the number of distraction-related accidents could rise.

The administration's recent study pointed out that when drivers used hands-free devices, they took longer to dial the phone and made more errors than when they were holding the cellphone to make the call. Drivers using a cellphone headset had to redial their calls 40 percent of the time because of mistakes, compared with an error rate of 18 percent for drivers who held the phone.

The study concluded that in most cases, drivers "overestimated the ease of use afforded by hands-free phone interfaces."

Drivers can be easily distracted, even when they have both hands on the wheel. "In many cases, it's the amount of brain power you're using," said David Champion, the senior director of auto tests for Consumer Reports. "Even if you're using a hands-free phone, you're using quite a bit of brain power to actually have a discussion."

Apart from regulating the use of cellphones in cars, state laws are silent on other distracting technology inside a car. The states and the federal government have left it up to the automakers to design features like navigation systems and DVD players so they are safe for drivers to operate.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which includes most of the world's top automakers like General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Ford and Toyota, has written a set of safety standards for vehicle technology. Under those standards, the automakers agreed to design DVD players and in-car televisions so that the driver cannot not see them while the car is in motion. They also agreed not to make devices that obstruct the driver's view or require the use of more than one hand.

"The goal is to minimize both visual and mental distractions," said Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the alliance. Ms. Bergquist said the industry believed it had drawn up guidelines that strike a proper balance between encouraging the design of entertainment-related features and keeping drivers safe.

"The guidelines recommend that no more than two seconds be required to look at a device - like a radio - to operate it, minimizing the amount of time a driver's eyes and a driver's mind are focused" on the device, she said.

"The old driver distractions such as the crying child in the back seat remains as powerful as ever," she added. "Today, however, a DVD player can help avoid that distraction by keeping the kids happy and entertained."

Still, with navigation systems, DVD players, speaker phones and satellite radio, some experts said that drivers have too many gadgets diverting their eyes from the road. And since the use of these potentially distracting technologies in vehicles is a relatively new phenomenon, there is little research on their safety.

"There's not as much data as we'd like to say how many people each year are killed because of these various devices," said Paul A. Green, a scientist at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Mr. Green oversaw a study in which drivers were asked to operate a navigation system while they performed normal driving tasks, like switching lanes. The results, he said, were not encouraging. On average, he found that drivers take 5.4 seconds to read and to process an electronic map.

"We see that use of these devices, depending on the task, can degrade driving significantly," Mr. Green said.

But he added that since navigation systems help to keep drivers from getting lost, the benefits of having one could outweigh the negatives.

"It's not as if all these devices all the time are bad," he said. "Navigation systems provide lots of nice safety benefits."

Automakers may be getting the message to make car technology less distracting. But it would be a mistake to conclude that voice-activated, hands-free features make the roads safer, Mr. Green said.

"There's this notion that speech is this panacea," he said. "It has the possibility to be a solution, but it depends on the implementation."

Joseph Coughlin, a professor at M.I.T. who has done research on driver distractions, said new technologies are being put in cars faster than drivers can learn how to use them. "We have too much of a good thing," Mr. Coughlin said. "A lot of these things are coming into the car and we haven't been taught how to use them."

One example of a complicated and distracting in-car technology is BMW's iDrive system. To operate it, drivers use a knob near the gear shift to scroll through a series of menu screens that control everything from the climate system to power steering. BMW began offering iDrive in 2002, but has since simplified the system somewhat.

Many of the world's leading automobile companies have begun to integrate cellphones into car audio systems so drivers do not have to use their hands while making a call. In addition to Acura, which is a division of Honda Motor, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and BMW all offer hands-free, voice-activated cellphone systems in their top models.

The availability of Bluetooth, a wireless technology that allows drivers to link calls from their cellphones to their car audio systems, is also expanding.

In Mr. Zeidenstein's new Acura RL, Bluetooth enables him to walk from his home to his car while talking on the phone and to transfer the call to the car's speakers at the push of a button. Bluetooth, combined with the other gadgets in his Acura RL, could be overwhelming to some drivers, he said.

"You might get the impression it could be sensory overload, " Mr. Zeidenstein said. But he was quick to add that he does not believe he is any less safe in his new car.

"It's no more distracting than my old car without all the fancy gizmos."

 

The fundamental issue is not whether activites such as talking on the phone or disciplining children causes distraction. Of course they do.

But more and more of our lives, as Americans, are spent behind the wheel of a car. The last studies I saw said that both work-at-home moms and those who have full-time outside employment average NINE hours in the car a week. Average. That's more than a full work day!

So the question becomes not, are some activities too distracting, but what activities will people engage in regardless?

I believe that cellphone conversation is distracting while driving. Of course I do it. Like all Americans, I think that I'm such a good driver I can afford to talk on the phone while I drive. I might even be right.

I don't think that talking on the phone while driving will ever go away. As our society requires more driving, we have delivered fast-food drive-throughs, good car stereos, cell phones, in-car video for the kids, satellite radio, and the rest. The capitalist "free market" is delivering products that people will use, not because of their convenience, but because their lifestyle seems to give them no alternative to those nine hours a week - and they resist being isolated drivers those nine hours, and yearn to reach out and connect to the rest of humanity in some way and not feel trapped - radio, CDs, and music works, but phones work even better.