An editorial against distracted driving discusses how the brain processes tasks sequentially, moving from one task to another very rapidly in a six step process. Both driving and using a phone are very complex cognitive tasks requiring the brain’s attention. The National Safety Council has discovered that talking on a cell phone while driving, even while using a hands-free device, can increase the risk of an accident by up to four times, as the brain must process all this information. Drivers using cell phones may miss up to 50% of the visual information about the road around them due to inattention blindness, resulting in more crashes.
Click here to read more about this interesting take on distracted driving.