Hands free risks

I remember not too long ago when you couldn’t make a call while driving without it being hands-free.

Every time a driver would ever pick up their cell phone to make or receive a call they were putting themselves, their

passengers, other drivers, and even pedestrians at risk.

Even with the improvements in technology, especially when concerning cell phones and vehicle compatibility some risk has been reduced with the hands-free implications that are

being made in newer model vehicles.

This does not however mean that all risk associated with talking on a cell phone while driving has been eliminated

though.

Let’s discuss some of the risks that every driver faces when they take or make a call while driving even when they are

using hands-free technology.

One of the risks that has been found to be true by a study at the University of Utah, which was funded by the AAA

Foundation for Traffic Safety the education arm of AAA is that when using speech-enabled technologies drivers were actually more distracted while driving in the simulation or a

research vehicle than when they were driving while just talking on a phone.

This being said the simple clicking of a button on your steering wheel to answer an inbound call is distracting, but

can be safer than just picking up your cell phone.

Another risk that is sweeping the nation for drivers is the speech-to-text enabled capabilities of newer vehicles.

It has been discovered that this feature may actually overload the driver thus making their driving more

dangerous for themselves and others.

It has been discovered by Dr.Strayer of the University of Utah that actually talking on the phone whether it is using a hands-free device or not can be much more dangerous than

driving drunk.

However, the level of mental distraction isn’t universal with each vehicle or phone.

Another study has been done by AAA to compare the level of mental distraction.

From the study the safest vehicles to choose from door their voice-activated systems is the Chevy Equinox, Buick

Lacrosse, and the Toyota 4Runner.

The most dangerous vehicles or voice-activated software was found in the Mazda 6, Microsoft Cortana, and the

Sonota by Hyundai.

In conclusion while using a hands-free device can be safer at times if you choose to take or make a call compared to

actually picking up your phone and taking your eyes off the road there are still certain risks that drivers should be aware

of.

Ultimately the only way to eliminate these risks all together is to simply not talk or text while driving.