New research has shown that listening to traffic reports and music on your car radio can cause careless driving. So much so that some drivers could even miss an elephant standing at the die of the road.
Research carried out by the University College of Cork and the University College of Dublin has shown that 3 quarters of all drivers missed driving hazards when listening to their radio.
The research was carried out by Dr Ciara Green (Dublin) and Phd student Gillian Murphy (Cork) and have stated that where road safety campaigners stress that drivers should keep their eyes on the road, this advice may not be enough.
They presented their findings at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference.
Gillian Murphy has been studying Perceptual Load Theory which states that humans have a finite amount of attention at any particular time.
The theory follows that if our attention is at its maximum levels then we have no allowance for any other stimuli.
In conducting the research, Ms Murphy tested some 36 drivers in a route simulator and asked them to listen to traffic reports on the radio. They were also asked to listen out for a change in gender of the road traffic news presenter and this aspect of the test was classified as a “simple task.”
There was also a “complex task” and this involved the driver listening for a traffic report about a specific road.
Only 23% of those drivers tested noticed an elephant or a gorilla standing at the side of the road during the complex task. This can be compared with 71% of the drivers who were listening out for the simple task.
Drivers listening for the complex task also missed road signs and paid less attention to other road users which impeached on their speed and reaction times.
Gillian Murphy said: “Road safety campaigns are so focused on telling us to keep our eyes on the road, and this is certainly important, but this research tells us that it’s simply not enough.
“We should focus on keeping our brains on the road.
“Anything that draws our attention away from driving can be problematic, even if it’s auditory like listening to the radio or having a hands-free phone conversation. That doesn’t mean that we should ban radios in cars, but that we should all be aware of the limits of our attention.
“The fact that we found this using a simple, naturally occurring task like listening out for a traffic update on the radio suggests that the load on our hearing may be an important and overlooked contributor to driver distraction and inattention.”
