SMS at the wheel dangerous even without typing
Even with voice recognition software, texting while driving increases the risk of an accident.
Anyone who enters text messages by hand while driving is a danger to themselves and others - that's a well-known fact. But what if the driver uses voice recognition software to send them? Is he on the safe side with that?
Unfortunately no, as a Investigation of the Institute for Work and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IAG) shows: It is true that reading and manually writing messages reduces attention to road traffic particularly strongly. But even with a voice recognition app, distraction is still significant.
In the study, subjects had to drive a test route in a driving simulator while either reading and writing text messages on their cell phones, or then having the messages read to them via a voice recognition app.
"It turned out that for all subjects, driving performance deteriorated significantly as a result of the additional tasks," says study leader Dr. Hiltraut Paridon. It's true that typing is the biggest distraction - but even when using the voice recognition app, the test subjects deviated significantly from the lane.
The study leaders therefore advise to always do without the cell phone in road traffic.
