Gps Won't Drive You To Distraction

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday March 10, 2008

Simon Tsang

Researchers are studying GPS navigation devices to find out whether they are a dangerous distraction for drivers. Several Australian and European organisations are conducting a five-year study into driver distractions, GPS among them.

Well, I can perhaps shave a few months off that study because I know exactly what the conclusions will be regarding GPS devices - use them properly and they are a big help; use them like an idiot and you'll end up around a tree. This remarkable revelation is based on my own (decidedly less scientific) testing of various GPS devices over the years. There have been some I wanted to throw out of a moving vehicle into a brick wall but most will get you from A to B along a reasonable route.

In unfamiliar territory, a GPS is able to let you focus on the task of driving. A researcher was quoted in a news story last week on this subject saying GPS use "could be possibly more [distracting] than the mobile phone". I think this is a highly irresponsible statement to make without hard evidence to back it up.

Extensive research has been conducted on the use of mobiles in cars. Mobiles distract drivers, not because drivers are are holding or operating the phone, but because the person's mind is on the conversation. How can a GPS be more distracting than that? Of course, you're supposed to punch in the destination before setting off, then not touch the GPS again while you're driving. Again, it goes back to using it properly.

Factory-installed navigation systems make sure you can't mess with them while moving but portable ones merely warn you not to do it. If it becomes mandatory that portable units can't be fiddled with as long as they sense movement - which they all do by the very nature of how they work - then it will overcome most of the distraction issues. Then it's up to the driver to use commonsense in interpreting the directions and not blindly following instructions to go up an exit ramp.

However, in this spirit, I've compiled my own list of driver distractions based on comments from experts in news stories during the past three years. Mobile phones are a given, of course. The rest in no particular order are: kids, talking to passengers, eating food, pets, loud music, crack in the windscreen, CD/DVD players, picking your nose, looking at the countryside and watching cows. I'd like to see the research on that one.

stsang@smh.com.au

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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