The Future of Risk: Why Developing A Deep Understanding of Driver Behaviour is So Important to Help Eliminate Distracted Driving

Article written by Dr Lisa Dorn

Whenever any of us get behind the wheel, we are opening ourselves up to some level of risk.

Historically, one of the main ways of managing risk is to use skills-based training to ensure drivers possess the physical skills of driving before they are allowed on the road unaccompanied. However, a number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses have concluded that skills-based driver training is not deemed to be effective in reducing road traffic injuries and crashes for offender, experienced, learner or new drivers.

It is much more likely that the mental skills required for driving are the reason that a driver will be involved in a crash. These might include: deciding to continue driving when fatigued, being late and driving too fast to make up time and, of course, being distracted by using a mobile phone whilst driving.

Distractions are defined as the diversion of a driver’s attention from the activities which are critical for safe driving (Regan et al, 2011). Driver distraction has always been considered a problem with road safety professionals, worried about the distracting effects of eating, drinking, smoking and using the car radio whilst driving, passengers in the car, plus external distractions such as roadside advertising (Stutts et al, 2005a).However, the distracting effects of mobile use whilst driving are considered to be far worse than most other forms of distraction behind the wheel.

For insurers, who are in the business of risk, it is important to monitor the risk level of their policyholders to gain a true picture of their behaviour -from how fast they drive and how harshly they use the brakes to how distracted they are during their journeys.

These insights allow insurers to more accurately predict a driver’s risk profile and price their policies.It also informs feedback which can be provided to the policyholder to help them reduce their chance of being involved in a crash.

Driver at the wheel

Why is Understanding Distracted Driving so Important?

Driving whilst using a mobile phone has continued to increase, particularly among young drivers aged 16–24 (Pickrell et al, 2016). In a 2015 survey, nearly 70% of drivers aged 16 to 18 reported that they had talked on a mobile phone, 42% had read a text or email, and 32% had typed/texted whilst driving in the past 30 days (AAA, 2016).

There are no reliable estimates of the number of crashes which have been caused by distracted drivers and most of what we do know about mobile phones and crash risk comes from naturalistic studies. Overall, there is a statistically significant increase in crash risk when using a mobile phone whilst driving - about three to four times the risk compared with when a mobile phone is not used (Elvik, 2011; Backer- Grøndahl and Sagberg, 2011; Klauer et al, 2014; Dingus et al, 2016).

Compared with other age groups, teenage drivers who are involved in fatal crashes are more likely to be reported to have been distracted at the time of the crash (NHTSA, 2016), with distractions found as a factor in nearly 6 out of 10 moderate/severe crashes (Beanland, Fitzharris, Young, & Lenné, 2013). Between 2005 and 2008, there was a 28% rise in fatalities from distracted driving with one of the major reasons due to the rise in texting behind the wheel (Wilson and Stimpson, 2010).

An analysis of 28 experimental studies also reported that typing or reading text messages whilst driving significantly slowed reaction times, increased lane deviations and increased the length of time drivers looked away from the roadway (Caird et al, 2014).

Over 2000 naturalistic driving videos capturing crashes of drivers aged 16–19, occurring between 2007 and 2015, were investigated to understand the type of crashes teens are most involved in (Carney et al, 2018). Among mobile phone related crashes, particularly rear-end crashes, there was a significant shift in associated factors from talking/listening to operating/looking, perhaps indicating that mobile phones are increasingly being used for social media and messaging purposes and less so for making/receiving calls.

Rear-end crashes are often caused by following too closely and/or responding too late due to in-attention or distraction (McDonald et al, 2014). Although it is possible that teenage drivers started following closer, the study’s authors conclude that it is more likely that the distracting effect of mobile phones led to an increase in driver’s eyes being off the road, resulting in an increase of rear-end crashes.

Drivers usually take their eyes off the road ahead to dial or text (Fitch et al, 2015), affecting how drivers visually scan and process traffic and road related information. It appears that drivers may compensate for this additional workload by concentrating their gaze toward the centre of the roadway, reducing visual sweeps (Recarte & Nunes, 2000; Strayer et al, 2003), and indicators and mirrors are being used less in an effort to dump or reduce tasks (Reed & Robbins, 2008).

This cognitive distraction can lead to “inattention blindness” as drivers fail to comprehend or process information from hazards even when they are looking directly at them (Strayer et al, 2003). All of these visual, perceptual and attentional challenges when using a mobile phone are having a significant effect on driving performance.

Person using their phone

Is Hands-Free Driving Safe?

Modern cars now include hands-free mobile integration in an attempt to reduce time spent with eyes off the road and hands off the wheel, as this has been argued to be safer compared with using a handheld device. However, during mobile phone conversations, the brain’s capacity to process information is limited because it is attending to two types of sensory information simultaneously (sound and vision) and our attention cannot be divided equally as attending to sounds impairs our ability to process visual information (e.g. Horrey & Wickens, 2006; Recarte & Nunes, 2003; Strayer, et al., 2006).

A recent review found that conversation on a handheld or hands-free phone resulted in reduced attention when compared with baseline driving (driving without distraction) for reaction times, stimulus detection, and collisions. Passenger conversation had a similar impact, and dialling whilst driving had the largest performance costs, with drivers attempting to compensate for the increased demand by increasing headway or reducing speed (Caird et al, 2018).

Distracted driver operating their phone behind the wheel

Using Telematics to Understand Driver Distraction

However, despite all this, phone use whilst driving is difficult to detect unless a smartphone-based telematics app is used to collate and share data in real-time. Smartphone-based telematics uses a combination of data generated via the sensors integrated into contemporary smartphones including the accelerometer, the gyroscope, the magnetometer and GPS.

This data, alongside risk statistics and algorithmic processing, is processed via a cloud computer platform. This real-time sensor data allows us to generate insights and scores, these are provided as feedback to the driver via a portal or an app supporting positive education and risk minimisation.

The Floow’s scoring algorithm creates overall driver and journey scores, as well as component scores, which consider key areas of driver behaviour including smooth driving, speed, the time of day the policyholder is driving and levels of mobile distraction over the course of a journey.

Our Mobile Distraction score considers active engagement levels in non-driving tasks and measures how much a driver physically interacts with their phone as well as the phone’s call state throughout a journey. This approach generates a measure of contextual risk-taking that a driver undertakes during a journey allowing driver feedback to be provided via a smartphone app immediately after each journey is completed.