It is a modern scourge and a challenge for road safety: notifications that often encourage you to consult your smartphone, which distracts drivers. In 2023, this lack of attention was involved in a body accident in four in France, even a participation in 390 deaths.
On average, a user of a smartphone receives 80 notifications per day, but this can exceed 300 in some. And unless you turn off your phone or go to the plane mode, do not stop during driving.
Driving simulator notifications
But how dangerous is this addiction to the phone? This is what the Security Prévention Association wanted to verify, at the time of the first vacation outings, with a scientific study on this subject. The experience invited 24 regular drivers to simulate a trip that combines driving in the city, on secondary roads and then on the road.
This 30 -minute trip was made three times for each participant: the first time with a “natural use”, the driver’s smartphone posed in a medium, the second time without a smartphone and the third time with the sending of notifications (SMS and WhatsApp messages) during risky driving situations.
The results of the experience show how these different requests degrade the level of concentration and, therefore, drive. A de facto device identified where the driver’s gaze, which can evaluate this level and distraction time.
500 blind meters on the road
Therefore, it seems that a driver who activated the notifications of his smartphone in view of the road for 6 minutes per hour, the equivalent of an hour on a Paris-Nice trip.
Another surprising figure: a notification requires an average of 12.7 seconds to “treat it”, with an aspect that alternates between the road and the screen, but the essential security verifications (an appearance in a mirror, for example) that go to the hatch. At 130 km/h on the road, this represents that almost 500 meters travel blind.
In the city, 50 km/h, this represents 176 meters traveled with the risk of not seeing a pedestrian cross or having a hung with another road user.
Several video extracts of this experience allow you to achieve how much they can get a driver from your concentration. An example: when approaching a red light, the simple fact of reacting to a notification strongly delays the stop, beyond the line of fire. The driver restarts almost 7 seconds after the green change … and does not see that the car reaches his right, roasting the fire. One of the traps is tense by the designers of this experience.
In other more harmless scenarios, there are non -mastitized trajectories, breach of safety distances, with a road trip in one of the examples.
A risk of accident multiplied by two
Finally, taking into account these notifications, double the risk of accident according to this experience that extends that it was already carried out last year by prevention insurance on this subject.
“20 years ago, lack of attention represented the seventh cause of fatal accident, today is the third after speed and alcohol,” said Eric Lemaire, vice president of prevention insurance, during the presentation of this study.
Digital is accelerating this deconcentration in a certain way with a permanent application.
“Already, in the early 2000s with the arrival of emails in business, we noticed that an employee could remain concentrated for a maximum of 7 minutes before being disturbed,” said Dominique Boullier, digital sociologist.
By discussing with the people who pass the famous points recovery courses, the researcher also observes an almost systematic response to dangerous behavior: the classic “does not care, handling”, which can be applied to the red red lights … as in the fact of consulting his phone, without consciousness of the danger before living an accident.
“It is a problem of distribution of cognitive energy, there is the illusion that one can be in the multiple field, while the brain can only handle a succession of tasks and, above all, degrade its treatment of the main task,” summarizes Dominique Boullier.
Advice to stay focused
To reduce the risks, prevention insurance advises cutting its notifications (with the “not disturbing” mode, for example, allowing the connection for GPS uses to be able to use the plane mode) or trust your phone to a passenger.
It is also recommended to anticipate radio configuration, a musical playback list and the route to GPS to limit the interactions that will be carried out in the steering wheel.
Finally, remember to plan regular breaks, every 2 hours maximum and otherwise from the first signs of fatigue. The opportunity to rest, get rid and why not reconnect, before going to the road.
Source: BFM TV
