In the USA, and many other countries around the world, texting and talking on the phone are prohibited while driving, but the use of personal assistants such as Crab could soon fall into the same category. A study carried out by a university in Texas reveals the fact that both forms of use of smartphones generate delayed reactions of drivers, although in the case Crab, or other similar systems, the driver does not take his eyes off the road when speaking the voice commands. On average, the driver reacts 2 times harder than normal and this can cause fatal accidents in certain cases.
Using voice to send text messages while driving is just as dangerous as texting with fingers, with driver response times significantly delayed no matter which method was used, a study released on Tuesday showed. The study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University was the first to compare voice-to-text and traditional texting on a handheld device in an actual driving environment. "In each case, drivers took about twice as long to react as they did when they weren't texting," Christine Yager, who headed the study, told Reuters. "Eye contact to the roadway also decreased, no matter which texting method was used."
The researchers say that regardless of the method of interaction with the smartphone, the brain is subjected to the same amount of work and is unable to offer the same attention to driving the vehicle. Even if the results were not good, the drivers felt much safer using systems like Siri than in situations where they wrote messages, but their performance was negatively affected in both cases. The study was conducted on 43 participants, so its relevance is not really that great, but it will probably generate the development of an advanced study that could lead to a change in American legislation to prohibit the use of systems like Siri while driving.
