By now we all know that talking on the phone while driving poses a great distraction. But did you know there’s something even more distracting, and you probably do it all the time?
An Australian study found that driving with children in the car is twelve times more distracting than using a cell phone while driving.
When you think about it, that’s not surprising. Besides the normal conversation that children engage us in, there’s also crying, yelling, nagging, whining, bickering, singing annoying songs, and endless games of I-spy. And those are just the audible components.
Add to it the toy-dropping, punching of siblings, and frantic waving of hands for no particular reason. Then add in the help opening the snack package, the handing-back of the snack package, and then your desperate contortions as you try to retrieve the empty packet before your child dumps the crumbs all over his or her car seat.
Those kids are kind of distracting, aren’t they?
The study found that during a 16-minute trip, parents’ eyes were off the road for almost 3.5 minutes, mainly from glancing in the rear-view mirror at their kids. Some even positioned the mirror to focus on their children rather than on the cars behind them.
I felt very smug reading the study and some articles about it. I hardly ever look back at my kids. Maybe I’m lucky in that they’re generally pretty well behaved in the car, or maybe I’m just really good at ignoring them, but that aspect just isn’t an issue for me.
They’re also at ages now where I can pretty much rely on them to hold onto their trash, and they know that if they drop a toy, they’re out of luck. Reaching for a dropped item is something I will not ever, ever do while I’m driving.
But then there’s the part about conversation…and I’m guilty of that one. Just as with the other party in a cell phone conversation, kids aren’t usually aware of what’s going on outside the car. They have constant comments and questions that need answering, and not always at the best times. I remember recently when I was trying to explain the history of child labor laws to an inquisitive 5-year-old while also navigating a tricky highway interchange. When things get too intense or distracting, I do sometimes tell my kids to wait a minute, then get back to them once I’m done backing out or merging or whatever I was doing.
One conclusion made by the researchers (that likely won’t come as a surprise to readers of this blog) is that properly restraining children probably leads to less distraction by the parents. This particular study showed that the children involved were incorrectly positioned 70% of the time, which could certainly lead to a need for increased attention by the parents. Chalk up another benefit to child restraints: Besides protecting kids in a crash, they can help prevent them in the first place.
I was going to tell the story of my 2.5 yo unbuckling his booster on the freeway and how I nearly crashed and killed us all in an ironic fashion while screaming at him about it. (I pulled over and fixed it, and this was a long, long time ago, I have made amends with the carseat gods ;)). But lately I’ve come to realize, I was given a carseat screaming baby for a reason: To train me to drive despite any and all distracting passengers. One day, screaming baby. Years later, FIVE TEENAGE GIRLS SINGING BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY IN A SNOWSTORM WITH YOUR LOW TIRE WARNING LIGHT ON. It’s possible there may be finger imprints in my steering wheel still…
The Monash study is interesting and seems to confirm what we all know about how distracting kids can be. At the same time, it only measured visual distraction rather than actual crash risk.
A separate study here in the US [see NHTSA report DOT HS 810 594] was based on a 100-car, long-term naturalistic driving study that included cameras to detect the direction of the driver’s gaze as well as data on actual crash and near-crash involvement. That study found that secondary tasks were indeed associated with a greater incidence of crash and near-crash events, but that looking at children in the backseat was one of the least distracting activities that they measured. In fact, looking at children had an odds ratio (OR) less than 1, meaning that it in some sense was statistically safer than baseline driving — though of course that likely reflects the fact that drivers time their glances away from the road differently for different tasks and that people probably drive more carefully with kids in the car. Some other ORs from the study:
Reaching for moving object 8.82
Looking at external object 3.70
Dialing handheld device 2.79
Adjusting radio 0.55
Talking to child in rear seat 0.33