This argument fails repeated testing. It turns out that human-human conversation involves both parties paying attention to the environment and co-operating to insert pauses and situational awareness. In essence, h-h communication in a car requires much less cognitive load on the driver because a large part of it becomes shared.
We've all seen this fail at times too. That's when the driver has to tell the passenger to stop talking so they can concentrate on directions or signage, etc.
> In contrast, the University of Illinois meta-analysis concluded that passenger conversations were just as costly to driving performance as cell phone ones.
> AAA ranks passengers as the third most reported cause of distraction-related accidents at 11 percent, compared to 1.5 percent for cellular telephones.
> A simulation study funded by the American Transportation Research Board concluded that driving events that require urgent responses may be influenced by in-vehicle conversations, and that there is little practical evidence that passengers adjusted their conversations to changes in the traffic.
May I recommend that instead of relying on someone's third-hand interpretation in Wikipedia, you prefer to refer to the underlying source, or better yet since that source is itself only a meta-analysis in this case, to the original primary research?
For example, what the meta-analysis paper actually says is:
"From our analyses, in-vehicle (passenger) conversations were just as costly to driving performance as were remote (cell phone) conversations. This suggests that passengers, at least in those studies explored here, did not moderate their conversation in such a way as to alleviate the costs (as compared with remote conversers). These results must be interpreted with caution, however, given that relatively few studies directly examined the impact of passenger conversations."
If you look at their table of the original research they are working from, you can clearly see why they included that cautionary note.
Alternatively, a few minutes with Google Scholar will get you numerous primary sources that show a clear distinction between the effects of remote conversation and the effects of passenger interaction. Some studies suggest that passengers who don't moderate their conversation still have a negative effect, but hardly anyone has data that implies an effect as bad as cell phone conversations. Other studies found evidence that passengers can also be a benefit, for example warning an insufficiently attentive driver of a hazard they had failed to recognise themselves.
There is unfortunately not very much research into more specific conditions when passengers may prove to be a particularly serious distraction. For example, we know that young and inexperienced drivers are disproportionately likely to have accidents, but we don't yet know for sure whether passengers of a similar age are disproportionately likely to be a significant distraction. There is some evidence to suggest that this is at least a plausible theory, and in some places young and inexperienced drivers are now limited in the passengers they can take when they first start driving unsupervised.
both of the studies referenced there were from a decade ago - 2004 and 2006. I wonder what the numbers would be today, given that there's so many more cellphones on the road.
Haven't seen any actual numbers yet, but the 'human conversation' thing - 11% - how many of those involved children in the back seats distracting the driver?
not only are there more phones on the road. they're almost all touch screen (no tactile response = more likely to look at it to use it) and they're almost all smart phones, so morons like the one in the video can "compose tweets" while driving.
>>That's when the driver has to tell the passenger to stop talking so they can concentrate on directions or signage, etc.
When I do it to my mother she gets cross and starts talking even more, which is even more distracting. There is no good way out of this situation I am afraid. Some people have absolutely no situational awareness and are actively distracting as passengers.
We've all seen this fail at times too. That's when the driver has to tell the passenger to stop talking so they can concentrate on directions or signage, etc.