Gulf News explores the dangers of using a mobile phone while driving. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00There are a whole bunch of distractions when you're driving, and modern cars have lots
00:09of gizmos in them, sat-nav and so on, and TV and whatever, but the rising distraction
00:16at the moment is the mobile phone.
00:19Because the mobile phone is now no longer just a telephone, it's whatever you want it
00:23to be, it's a keypad, it's a television, it's your email, it's a computer, it's any number
00:29of things.
00:30So, in fact, it's a major distraction now, because you can't just use it, you can't just
00:35listen to it, you have to look at it.
00:38People tend not to use Bluetooth connections, people tend to not use earpieces, they drive
00:43along holding them, looking at them.
00:45It's really a major distraction, and it's been statistically proven to be the source,
00:50or the reason, if you like, for many, many accidents in countries around the world.
00:56Even if you're using a phone hands-free, you're at greater accident risk by a factor
01:00of four times, because your mind is thinking about the phone call.
01:04If you're hand-holding something, or putting it to your ear, there's a greater risk.
01:08If you're texting, it's an even greater risk.
01:10In other words, you're becoming detached from the driving process.
01:15You're just in the car, and the world's going on around you.
01:18Your mind, because you've told it to do so, is concentrating on the phone, and not on
01:23the outside world.
01:25It's only when you decide to look up from the phone, your brain kicks in again, and
01:29brings in all the peripheral vision, and starts looking at what's going on.
01:33It might be too late then.
01:35One of the simplest ways to describe it is, it takes the edge off your observation for
01:41a start.
01:42When you're following in traffic, cars go faster, cars go slower.
01:45All that judgment, that depth and spatial perception, goes when using a phone.
01:51If you're just in a car, using a phone, you're almost as much of a passenger, as a person
01:56sitting beside you, which I find quite frightening.
02:05I think simulators offer quite a real perspective of driving.
02:14Your body, physiologically, doesn't pick up on the movement that you'd have in a car,
02:20which you feel through your body, which you feel through your ear canals, and so on, the
02:24accelerative forces.
02:25But your mind deduces the streetscape in a very similar way.
02:30I guess it's probably, with the simulators that we use here, you're probably getting
02:35something like a 70% to 80% representation of driving.
02:41But in terms of how a phone or a smartphone will affect your ability to drive, they do
02:46provide a very accurate representation, because if you're going to go off the road in a real
02:49car, you'll go off the road in a simulator in just the same way.
02:57I just wish people were as interested in road safety and keeping themselves, families and
03:03pedestrians safe, as they are about the radios fitted in the car, or whether it's got leather
03:08seats or whatever.
03:10Safety surely must come first and foremost.