Post and During Event Effect of Cell Phone Talking and Texting on Driving Performance - A Driving Simulator Study

<b>Objective:</b> A number of studies have been done in the field of driver distraction, specifically on the use of cell phone for either conversation or texting while driving. Till now, researchers have focused on the driving performance of drivers when they were actually engaged in the task, i.e. during the texting or phone conversation event. However, it is still unknown whether the impact of cell phone usages ceases immediately after the end of task. The primary objective of this paper is to analyze the post event effect of cell phone usage (texting and conversation) in order to verify whether the distracting effect lingers on after the actual event had ceased.<b>Methods:</b> It utilizes a driving simulator study of thirty-six participants to test whether a significant decrease in driver performance occurs during cell phone usage and after the usage. Surrogate measures used to represent lateral and longitudinal control of the vehicle were standard deviation (SD) of Lane Position and Mean Velocity respectively.<b>Results:</b> Results suggest there were no significant decrease in driver performance (both lateral and longitudinal control) during and after the cell phone conversation. For the texting event, there were significant decreases in driver performance in both the longitudinal and lateral control of the vehicle during the actual texting task. The diminished longitudinal control ceased immediately after the texting event but the diminished lateral control lingered on for an average of 3.38 seconds. The number of text messages exchanged did not affect the magnitude or duration of the diminished lateral control.<b>Conclusion:</b> The result indicates that the distraction and subsequent elevated crash risk of texting while driving linger on even after the texting event has ceased. Such finding has safety and policy implications in the fight to reduce distracted driving.