WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued interim regulatory guidance prohibiting commercial drivers from texting while operating a commercial vehicle.

The agency published guidance on the ban in late January under a regulation that generally restricts the use of “additional equipment and accessories that decrease the safety of operation of commercial motor vehicles.” In its Federal Register notice, the FMCSA said that an electronic device for texting would be considered additional equipment or accessories. The agency was also clear that the guidance notice did not prohibit the use of cell phones in commercial vehicles.

In issuing the recommendation, the FMSCA also cited its October study, ‘‘Driver Distraction in Commercial Vehicle Operations,’’ which investigated the prevalence of driver distraction in crashes, near-crashes, lane departures and other safety-critical events. The naturalistic driving study concluded: “The odds of being involved in a safety-critical event is 23.2 times greater for drivers who are texting while driving than for those who do not. Texting drivers took their eyes off the forward roadway for an average of 4.6 seconds during the 6-second interval immediately preceding a safety-critical event. At 55 mph (or 80.7 feet per second), this equates to a driver traveling 371 feet, the approximate length of a football field, including the end zones, without looking at the roadway. At 65 mph (or 95.3 feet per second), the driver would have traveled approximately 439 feet without looking at the roadway.”

The notice follows a September petition by Advocates for Highway Safety requesting that the FMSCA prohibit or restrict any electronic device that could divert commercial drivers’ attention. Advocates had asked the FMCSA to immediately open a rulemaking to review the most current research on distracted driving, determine which electronic devices and technologies distract commercial drivers and then consider prohibiting them. The Advocates petition says anything that takes drivers off their primary task must be considered – cell phones and hands-free remotes, global petitioning systems, texting and entertainment devices – for a ban or a severe restriction. The group had asked that first responders, such as police and emergency medical technicians be exempted and that exceptions be made for operators using electronic devices to summon help during an emergency. Finally, the petition requested that any rule apply to all commercial motor vehicle drivers – including bus drivers covered by the FMCSA – and that violations automatically result in an Out of Service order – meaning the driver is prohibited from operating a commercial truck for a specified period of time.

Henry Jasny, Advocates’ general counsel said that the notice is only a partial response and doesn’t address the multitude of electronic distractions that are part and parcel of the cab in a commercial vehicle.

“At least the train is moving in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough,” he said. “Our petition went far beyond texting alone. Texting is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s the distraction of all the devices for work and infotainment. Drivers’ attention should always be on the road and not looking at maps or responding to messages even if its voice activated.”

The agency said that it would address the use of other electronic devices while driving in a later rulemaking.

LAS VEGAS, NV – In the capital of distractions, visitors to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month got a preview of the latest innovation in on-board electronics – and it didn’t make Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood very happy. Just two months after LaHood raised the alarm about distracted driving at a Washington summit, software-makers Intel and Google touted the marriage of computing and driving.

Dashboard PCs ramp up the competition for a driver’s attention, allowing tomorrow’s motorists not only to get directions to Disney World, for example, but also to find out the price of admission, nearby hotels and restaurants – all on a 10-inch screen above the gear-shift.

In a New York Times article about these systems, LaHood declared: “The idea they’re going to load automobiles up with all kinds of ways to be distracted — that’s not the direction we’re going, and I will speak out against it.”

But will LaHood regulate against it? Already, today’s driver can talk on the phone, receive a fax, read e-mail, surf the net. And should this interconnectedness distract him, his vehicle can warn him if he drifts the line, brake if he gets too close to the vehicle in front of him or help him negotiate a sharp curve up ahead. As automakers stuff vehicles with on-board electronic distractions, they are stuffing them with electronic “assistants” that take control of the vehicle while the driver is occupied elsewhere.

Distracted driving will continue to be a hot topic. It was at the center of almost every question senators asked NHTSA nominee David Strickland at his confirmation hearing last month. (See Advocates Applaud Strickland Appointment) Laws to regulate driver behavior are trying to catch up to the proliferation of attention-dividing devices and the national news media have kept the issue simmering with regular stories, like the New York Times coverage of the consumer electronics convention.

But little attention is being paid to the big picture – the interplay between driver-distractive technology, driver-assistive technology and the problems that may inadvertently be created by the sheer size of a vehicle’s electronic architecture. And other than state, and perhaps, eventually, a federal law governing driver behavior, nothing has been done to hold manufacturers accountable for making the task of driving more difficult as they turn automobiles into travelling entertainment centers and work stations.

NHTSA’s Response

To date, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has done little but take note of the trend. While the agency has a role to play as a leader in setting automotive safety policy, its true power lies in regulating automobiles. In that respect, the agency has done nothing to curb the growth of on-board communication technologies.

Since 2002, it has conducted research on driver behavior, publishing a spate of reports on the impact of distractions on truck drivers, naturalistic studies of hand-held cell phone use, assessments involving distracted driving and crash risk, and drivers’ strategies for operating electronics while driving. Its other observational surveys have shown the steady creep of cell phone use while driving.

A NHTSA Research Note published last September begins with the damages report:

“In 2008, 5,870 people lost their lives and an estimated 515,000 people were injured in police-reported crashes in which at least one form of driver distraction was reported on the crash report. While these numbers are significant, they may not state the true size of the problem, since the identification of distraction and its role in the crash by law enforcement can be very difficult.”

An examination of data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the General Estimates Systems found that distraction was playing a role in a significant number of fatal and injury-causing crashes: 16 percent of all fatal crashes in 2008; 16 percent of all fatal crashes involving under-20 drivers; 21 percent of injury crashes; and more than 22 percent of all crashes and near-crashes recorded during a naturalistic driver study.

Despite the strong link between distraction and on-road mayhem, people behave as though it couldn’t possibly happen to them. NHTSA’s March 2008 study Driver Strategies for Engaging in Distracting Tasks Using In-Vehicle Technologies concluded that when technology calls, people answer, regardless of what’s happening at the wheel:

“The general picture that emerged from this research is that driver decisions about engaging in in-vehicle tasks are strongly related to considerations of task motivations (even if they may appear trivial) and “lifestyle” perceptions, and more weakly related to driving considerations and current or upcoming roadway and traffic attributes. There is little planning and preparation for activities and little tendency for drivers to delay activities until driving task demand is low. The in-vehicle task factor most important in driver considerations is visual demand. Common cell phone tasks did not engender much perceived risk or reluctance to engage in the activity.”

Even hands free technology won’t solve the problem. In 2007, the agency published a study examining the characteristics and effects of voice-based interfaces for in-vehicle systems on drivers. Thirty-six drivers in three age groups drove an instrumented vehicle while performing a combination of car following, peripheral target detection, and secondary tasks of varying complexity on a closed test track with some traffic present.

The researchers were trying to determine whether secondary tasks, performed using a hands-free voice interface, interfered with driving performance and how secondary task complexity was related to driving performance degradation. They were also trying to evaluate the effects of two specific voice interface attributes, one with a visual component and one without, and voice interface reliability.

The researchers found that “the in-vehicle tasks performed using voice interfaces were associated with significant degradation of driving performance. This was true both for simulated 511 system tasks (a traveler information system accessed by dialing 511) and for simulated hands-free phone tasks and leads to the conclusion that voice interfaces are not sufficient to eliminate the cognitive distraction associated with secondary tasks like those used in this study.”

“Tasks that required drivers to look at a simulated map display were most disruptive, not only because of the requirement to look away from driving, but also because of increased cognitive demands associated with the requirement to interpret information obtained from the 511 system with the visual map display. The simulated phone task was only slightly less disruptive than the 511 tasks, however because the phone task is considered to be more demanding than typical phone calls, real-world use of 511 systems by drivers is likely to be more distracting than typical phone calls.

All secondary tasks were associated with significant cognitive distraction, which affected not only the cognitive aspects of driving but also visual target detection and vehicle control. Thus while voice interfaces allow drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, the cognitive distraction associated with queries of a 511 traveler information system or moderately demanding hands-free phone conversation may impose a significant cognitive load that has the potential to degrade all components of driving performance.”

These findings ought to give the agency pause – or at least a foundation to consider regulations on the installation of on-board technologies. So far, the agency has revealed no regulatory strategy for dealing with these issues.

The Legislative Approach

State legislatures have taken the most proactive stance – although the approach tends to be crude, spotty and badly lag the pace of technological innovation. To date, only cell phone use has been regulated.

According to a compilation of laws by the Governors Highway Safety Association, no state bans all cell phone use altogether for all drivers, but six states: California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington), the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands prohibit all drivers from using handheld cell phones while driving; 21 states and the District of Columbia ban all cell use by novice drivers; 17 states and the District of Columbia, ban school bus drivers from all cell phone use when passengers are present. Nineteen states, the District of Columbia and Guam now ban text messaging for all drivers; 9 states prohibit text messaging by novice drivers; one state prohibits school bus drivers from texting while driving.

On the federal level, there are two pending bills: the Distracted Driving Prevention Act of 2009 and the Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting by Drivers Act of 2009 (The ALERT Drivers Act).

The distracted driving prevention proposal offers states more highway money – some of which can be used for actual road projects – if they pass laws banning texting while driving. States would have to enact laws that ban texting and hands-on cell phone use while driving, and ban novice drivers from any cell phone activity. The laws would have to make the violation a primary offense – meaning a police officer could stop a driver for texting, and carry civil and criminal penalties, depending on the number of offenses or if a crash is involved.

The ALERT Drivers Act uses the stick instead of the carrot, withholding 25 percent of a state’s federal highway funding from states that do not pass texting while driving laws.

Meanwhile, Back at the Factory

As NHTSA ponders and policymakers pass laws, manufacturers keep a sharp eye out for the next electronic innovation that will control the vehicle when the driver is otherwise engaged.

Most of these are variations on automatic braking systems, which either slow down the vehicle when it tails another vehicle too closely, or enters a curve at too high a rate of speed. In 2006, for example, Nissan unveiled its Distance Control Assist System which integrates a GPS navigation system with electronic stability control, to automatically apply the brakes if it senses that the vehicle is not cornering smoothly. The systems’ Navigation-Cooperative Intelligent Pedal predicts the optimum speed for the upcoming corners and prompts the driver to slow down by raising the accelerator pedal against the driver’s foot.

More recently, Bosch has been pushing its radar system that enables adaptive cruise control and predictive emergency braking, which combines predictive collision warning, emergency brake assist, and automatic emergency braking. Bosch also offers a multi-purpose camera to support lane departure warning and lane keeping technologies, which alerts the drivers that the vehicle is departing the roadway and corrects its course back to center.

But it seems likely that the powerful distractions – visual and otherwise – that manufacturers could install in vehicles could easily overwhelm the number of crash avoidance strategies suppliers could devise. Another concern that analysts have pointed out before: the number of defects is positively correlated with the size of a vehicle’s electronic architecture. As Toyota’s unintended acceleration problem shows, sometimes, when the car drives you, it’s a bad thing.