Texting whilst driving: driver's subjective awareness of the risks of sending and receiving text messages whilst driving

In order to identify the degree to which young drivers incorrectly estimate the effects on driving performance of texting while driving subjective self perceptions of their driving performance were compared to objective measures. A simulator based study assessed seventeen drivers aged 17-24 years, completing one drive without distraction and one drive in which they completed text messaging tasks. Sending and receiving messages were treated as distinct tasks. Participants were shown to be objectively impaired in their performance when reading and writing text messages. Additionally, participants reported an awareness of their decreased performance in the self-report measures. However, there were some discrepancies between their subjective reports and their objective performance. This indicated that despite participants having an awareness of the risks posed by texting whilst driving, the behaviour persists. Therefore simply informing young drivers of the risks while texting may not be sufficient to change their behaviour.

  • Authors:
    • ROBBINS, R
  • Publication Date: 2009

Language

  • English

Media Info

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01144153
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: TRL
  • Files: ITRD
  • Created Date: Nov 16 2009 12:31PM