Smartphone usage while driving is a worldwide phenomenon which is acknowledged as a major concern for road safety. While being a major cause of risk, smartphones apps may also serve as a means to ...control and reduce risky driving behavior. However, it is still unclear which apps should be favored and what features and functions compose such valuable apps. The purpose of this paper is to establish a blueprint for smartphone apps that will have the greatest potential to reduce injury crashes. The study is based on apps mapping and experts' opinions retrieved through an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Thirty seven experts participated in the study and evaluated and graded nine widespread types of apps according to various criteria. When weighing safety considerations versus acceptance concerns, they were found to be almost equally important. The results clearly define the desirable types of smartphone apps: collision warning, texting prevention (both no-typing and no-reading), voice control (both text-to-speech and commands), and Green Box (In Vehicle Data Recorder – IVDR). However, while texting prevention and IVDR are not likely to be widely accepted and used, collision warning and voice control apps are expected to gain public support.
•Smartphone apps may contribute to safety by controlling risky driving behavior.•Apps safety considerations are equally important to their acceptance concerns.•Collision warning, texting prevention, voice control, and IVDR are desirable apps.•Apps evaluation is based on various experts opinions retrieved through an AHP model.
•Smartphone usage while driving was studied.•Perceived safety and perceived need of calls and texting were investigated.•There is high belief that texting compromises safety but it is not associated ...with low texting rates.•Perceived need is the dominant factor associated with frequency of texting.•Half of the respondents are willing to try an app that blocks usage while driving.
Smartphone usage while driving, a prominent type of driver distraction, has become a major concern in the area of road safety. Answers to an internet survey by 757 Israeli drivers who own smartphones were analyzed with focus on two main purposes: (1) to gain insights regarding patterns of smartphone usage while driving and its motivation, (2) to probe drivers’ views on the perceived risk and the need to use smartphones while driving, as well as their willingness to use blocking apps that limit such usages. Phone calls and texting were found to be the most common usages while driving, hence, both were chosen to be further analyzed. 73% (N=551) of the respondents make phone calls while driving and almost half of them may be considered frequent callers as they admit to do it intensively while driving. As for texting, 35% of the respondents (N=256) text while driving and a quarter of them do so frequently. While phone calls were perceived to compromise safety by 34% of the users, texting was perceived to compromise safety by 84% of the users. However, we found that drivers place limitations on themselves as more than 70% avoid texting when they think they need to devote attention to driving. A logistic regression model indicates that perceived need and perceived safety are significant factors associated with being a frequent smartphone phone calls user, but only perceived need significantly predicts being a frequent texting user. Approximately half of all the respondents are willing to try an app which blocks smartphone usage while driving. The willingness to use such technology was found to be related primarily to perceived need. Less significant factors are work-related usage and perceived safety. Frequency of usage was not found to affect this willingness, indicating that it should not be a factor in designing and implementing interventions to limit smartphone usage while driving.
The challenge of ageing has two key aspects with regard to driving: mobility and safety. It is necessary for elderly adults to preserve independent mobility and activity; however, physical frailty ...and cognitive limitations have negative effects on their safety. Therefore, the issue of driving, and more specifically, the fostering of safe driving of old people, is crucial, especially due the increasing number of elderly people holding a driving license. The purpose of this Letter is to point out the complexity of elderly driving and to suggest countermeasures by acknowledging that obtaining the correct balance between safety and mobility of older drivers is a complicated and sensitive task. To address this issue, the authors suggest accommodating their driving behaviour and patterns, in light of the deteriorating driving skills, by integrating social and policy procedures and use of emerging technologies. Policy steps to support elderly drivers and their loved ones by gradually controlling driving of elderly population when this becomes risky to them may serve as a desired countermeasure according to a proved tool such as technology. Utilisation of advanced technologies can help to monitor travel and driver behaviour and ability to make the necessary alterations, based on elderly driving skills.
COVID-19 and motor vehicle crashes (MVC) are both considered epidemics by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), yet their progression, treatment and ...success in treatment have been very different. In this paper, we propose that the well-established sustainable safety approach to road safety can be applied to the management of COVID-19. We compare COVID-19 and MVC in terms of several defining characteristics, including evolvement and history, definitions and measures of evaluation, main attributes and characteristics, countermeasures, management and coping strategies, and key success factors. Despite stark differences, there are also some similarities between the two epidemics, and these enable insights into how the principles of sustainable road safety can be utilized to cope with and guide the treatment of COVID-19. Major guidelines that can be adopted include an aggressive policy set at the highest national level. The policy should be data- and science-based and would be most effective when relying on a systems approach (such as Sweden’s Vision Zero, the Netherlands’ Sustainable Safety, and the recommended EU Safe System). The policy should be enforceable and supplemented with positive public information and education campaigns (rather than scare tactics). Progression of mortality and morbidity should be tracked continuously to enable adjustments. Ethical issues (such as invasion of privacy) should be addressed to maximize public acceptance. Interestingly, the well-established domain of MVC can also benefit from the knowledge, experience, and strategies used in addressing COVID-19 by raising the urgency of detection and recognition of new risk factors (e.g., cell phone distractions), developing and implementing appropriate policy and countermeasures, and emphasizing the saliency of the impact of MVC on our daily lives.
Smartphone usage while driving, and particularly texting, poses a major concern for road safety. The goal of this study is to suggest a novel and objective means to measure the smartphone usage among ...young drivers. A naturalistic study was conducted with 254 Israeli young drivers who installed a research-oriented smartphone app which continuously monitors smartphones usage while driving. The app captures the actual number of times drivers are ‘touching’ their smartphone screens, the speed at which these screen-touches occur, foreground apps and time stamps. The results, which are based on 3304 h of driving performed in 11,528 trips, indicate that young drivers touch their smartphone screen on average 1.6 times per minute of driving. Alarmingly, more than half of the screen-touches are performed while the vehicle is in motion, and some touches occur even at speeds higher than 100 km/h. The screen-touches occur throughout the trip regardless of its duration. Approximately half of them are performed while using WhatsApp, a popular free messaging app. These findings provide objective evidence to the actual and intensive usage of smartphones. While comparing these results to participants' self-reports, it was found that young drivers clearly underestimate their smartphone usage while driving.
•Objective measures to evaluate smartphone usage while driving are proposed.•The evaluation is based on the actual number of screen-touches.•“Soft blocking” and monitoring have potential for ...mitigating smartphones usage.•A reduction of about 20% was obtained in the number of actual screen-touches.
Smartphone usage while driving, and particularly texting, are well recognized as a major road safety concern. This paper presents an attempt to evaluate the effect of countermeasures aimed at mitigating this usage. These countermeasures, which are automatically activated, may be considered "soft blockers": silencing and hiding notifications, as well as sending an automatic reply to the person trying to contact the driver. A naturalistic study was conducted with 167 young Israeli drivers, who installed a research-oriented smartphone app, which continuously monitored their smartphones usage while driving and, in addition, activated “soft blocking” in the study’s intervention stage. The evaluation is based on measures which capture the number of times drivers "touch" their smartphone screens, and on the vehicle’s speed when these screen-touches occur. The results, based on 6633 hours of driving logged on 23,019 trips, indicate that a reduction of approximately 20% was obtained in the average number of screen-touches during the intervention stage of the study; that is, in the experimental groups but also in the control group, which was merely monitored. In addition, when young drivers touched the screen, the vehicle was more likely not in motion. The current paper highlights the potential of “soft blockers”, as well as the awareness of being monitored, for mitigating smartphone usage while driving.
•Smartphone application measured the use of smartphone while driving.•Drivers in the research group (intervention) decreased their smartphone usage while driving.•Young drivers use their smartphone ...while driving at low driving speeds more than at high speeds.•Risk homeostasis-based intervention can decrease unsafe driving behavior.
Driving while distracted by smartphones is an unsafe behavior and constitutes a serious worldwide road safety issue. In line with the risk homeostasis theory, during high-speed driving, drivers perceive smartphone usage as an unwarranted risk and in most cases refrain from doing so. During low-speed driving, however, drivers often use their smartphones, as they do not perceive this as inherently unsafe, even though it is. The goal of this study was to examine an intervention, based on the risk homeostasis theory, aimed at decreasing the use of smartphones while driving at low speeds. Thirty-seven young drivers participated in the research group that aimed to alter drivers’ risk perceptions, decision making, and behavior. The study also included a control group of 33 young drivers. All of the participants’ smartphone usage was monitored using a dedicated application that measured both the number of times drivers touched their smartphone screens while driving and the driving speed each time the screen was touched. The results indicate that drivers in the research group decreased their smartphone usage while driving, unlike the control group drivers who did not alter their behavior. In conclusion, a risk homeostasis-based intervention can decrease dangerous and unsafe driving behavior, even when such behavior is not perceived as significantly dangerous. Furthermore, additional types of risky and unsafe driving behaviors may be decreased using this type of intervention.
This paper describes the overall framework and components of an in-vehicle data recorder (IVDR) called DriveDiagnostics and presents results from a study to validate its performance. This IVDR has ...been designed to monitor and analyze driver behavior not only in crash or precrash events but also in normal driving situations. It records the movement of the vehicle and uses this information to indicate overall trip safety. A validation study involved 33 drivers whose vehicles were instrumented with the IVDR. The experiment first included a blind profiling stage in which drivers did not receive any feedback from the system; that stage was followed by a feedback stage in which drivers had access to personal web pages with the information recorded by the system. Data collected in the blind profiling stage was used to investigate the connection between driver safety indices as captured by the system and historic crash data. The results show significant correlations between the two data sets, suggesting that the driving risk indices can be used as indicators of the risk of involvement in car crashes. This connection enabled investigation of the potential impact of the system on driving behavior and on safety. The results show that the initial exposure of drivers to the system has a significant positive impact on their behavior and on safety. Access to the feedback provided by the system has further impact on driver performance. However, if follow-up efforts are not made, neither of these positive impacts is sustained over time.
•Young drivers can be motivated to use a smartphone app that monitors their driving behavior.•Group incentives are effective in motivating young drivers to use a safety app.•Once incentives were ...achieved – young drivers stopped using the app.•Young drivers recruited their friends to help them gain the group’s rewards.
Encouraging young drivers to use driving feedback systems (referred here as GreenBoxes) is a challenge. Prior research and experience indicated that mainly due to insufficient motivation, adoption of GreenBoxes is minimal. Research also demonstrated that once feedback from GreenBoxes is provided to young drivers and their parents, the frequency of risky driving behavior is reduced.
This study investigated the possible benefits of providing group incentives to encourage usage of GreenBoxes among young drivers. The specific GreenBox used in this study was a smartphone app that needed to be initiated at the beginning of each trip. Once initiated it monitors driving behavior in terms of G-force events, provides score and feedback, and shares the driving information with a pre-defined sponsor.
This study builds and expands on a previous study by making the duration of the experiment longer, and by allowing participants to recruit their friends in order to help the group win its rewards.
Despite of the more challenging scheme needed to gain rewards, the results obtained repeat the success of the previous study: all eligible participants downloaded the app and used it to win the rewards for the group. Additionally, friends were recruited by participants and used the app to help the group win rewards (without getting any personal rewards for themselves). However, once all the pre-specified rewards were achieved within the allotted time period, the young drivers stopped using the app.
This study confirms again that barriers to adoption of GreenBox app among young drivers can be overcome by choosing low-cost suitable group incentive schemes.
This paper describes the potential of in-vehicle data recorder (IVDR) systems to be used in various commercial and research applications as tools to monitor and provide feedback to drivers on their ...on-road behavior. The implementation of IVDR is demonstrated using the example of the DriveDiagnostics system. This system can identify various maneuver types that occur in the raw measurements, and use this information to calculate risk indices that indicate on the overall trip safety. Drivers receive feedback through various summary reports, real-time text messages or an in-vehicle display unit. Validation tests with the system demonstrate promising potential as a measurement tool to evaluate driving behavior. Reductions in crash rates and the risk indices are observed in the short-term.
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