Naturalistic driving study on the usage of smart phone applications while driving

Abstract

We present the first results from a study that tracked how Finnish drivers use their smart phones while driving. We monitored 30 heavy-user drivers in Finland in June-September 2016, and recorded the times when they used their phones, the application used at the time of touch, and the location and speed of the car. Touches were used as a proxy for estimating visual distraction due to visual-manual tasks. Our data set allows us to determine whether drivers use their phones differently on different road types (highway, main road, local rural road, urban road). We found that the road type has very little effect on phone use. The drivers produced more touches per hour on urban roads but the instances of use tend to be slightly shorter than on the highway or on main roads. We also collected statistics on the applications that were used. By far the largest amount of distraction is caused by the WhatsApp messaging service, used by a majority of the drivers. An instance of WhatsApp use included a median of 12 touches, and had a median duration of 35 seconds. By contrast, navigation applications (better optimized for on-road-use) included a median of 4 touches and lasted 11 seconds. This suggests that the greatest risk from smart phone use may be currently caused by messaging applications.