Talking Hands-Free While Driving is as Distracting as Handheld Mobile Phones, Study Shows

A new study from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has found out that talking hands-free on a mobile phone while behind the wheel, though not considered illegal, is equally distracting as using a handheld mobile phones.

The study, which was presented at a Driving Distraction Seminar in QUT, measured the rate of mobile phone-induced distraction on the driver's reaction time and performance based on the CARRS-Q Advanced Driving Simulator.

Dr. Shimul (Md Mazharul) Haque and his team took a group of drivers to a virtual road network. The said network included various scenarios such as walking accross a pedestrian crossing as well as a pedestrian entering the driver's peripheral from a footpath.

"We then monitored the driver's performance and reaction times during hands-free and hand-held phone conversations and without. The reaction time of drivers participating in either a hand-held or hands-free conversation was more than 40 per cent longer than those not using a phone," said Haque. "In real terms this equates to a delayed response distance of about 11m for a vehicle travelling at 40km/h."

Haque explained to Science Daily that the distraction comes from the cognitive load that requires the driver to hold a conversation over that phone, regardless if the driver is holding the phone or taking hands-free.

"It appears that the increased brain power required to hold a phone conversation can alter a drivers' visual scanning pattern," he said. "In other words the human brain compensates for receiving increased information from a mobile phone conversation by not sending some visual information to the working memory, leading to a tendency to 'look at' but not 'see' objects by distracted drivers."

Meanwhile, in a related study, scientists from the University of Sussex previously found that drivers can visually imagine what they're talking about while driving and uses a part of their brain which is supposed to responsible in watching the road, BBC reports.