About Me

As a man thinks, so he is. Some people are never.

November 2009

Comments

steve_ - Mar 3, 2009 7:38 pm

Of course you're a Luddite - not only do you have a slide rule, you know how to use it! The inattention study is interesting. I hope the driving simulators they used in the study were better than the ones that were around back when I was taking driver's ed umpteen years ago.

wsherwoo - Mar 3, 2009 11:18 am

My name is Wes Sherwood and I am the safety communications manger for Ford. You raise a very important discussion, something we’ve researched a lot. A new Ford study shows voice-controlled interfaces such as Ford SYNC significantly reduce distraction levels compared to visually and manually operated handheld cell phones and music players. For example, study participants spent an average of 25 seconds with their eyes-off-the-road to select a song with a handheld MP3 player compared with 2 seconds for those choosing a song using SYNC. This builds on government research showing manual handheld cell phone operations such as dialing are nearly three times riskier than “normal” driving, which accounts for more traditional distractions (adjusting audio/climate systems, reaching for items, etc…) But, the study concludes talking on a cell phone (hands-free or handheld) while driving is statistically equivalent to normal driving. Details of the government driver distraction research are at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-12/100Car_ESV05summary.pdf More information on Ford’s research is at http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=29812

mickeyd16865 - Mar 2, 2009 7:23 pm

No nod to Dr. Seuss's birthday? I'm surprised Dub didn't have something to say.

Add Your Comment:

To post a comment about this blog you must be signed-in

November 2009

Archives

Alternate Route

Mar 2, 2009 - Next Generation