Car voice controls: Nifty or distracting?

Hands stay on wheel, but your focus could wander

If you think you’re safer talking to your dashboard than into your phone, some say you should think again. Automakers are rapidly adding voice controls for phones, navigation and other dashboard tasks to reduce distraction, but safety experts disagree on whether they help or hurt drivers’ focus.

At a recent National Transportation Safety Board public forum, Chairman Deborah Hersman lamented the “gap in research” about car voice controls.

NTSB recommended in December that states ban the use of all mobile devices in cars, except for emergencies or navigation. The Transportation Department says distracted driving is to blame for about 3,000 of the 33,000 lives lost in car crashes each year.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed guidelines in February for in-car technology, but it isn’t addressing voice controls until at least 2014. The guidelines were based on those drafted by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers a decade ago.

University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer is researching distraction for a study commissioned by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. When people in a simulator were using a system that let them receive e-mails and choose whether to have them read to them, which is offered on many smartphones and cars, it took “significantly longer” to react to brake lights ahead than when they were listening to the radio or talking on a cellphone, Strayer says.

About 99% of 2012 vehicles had standard or optional Bluetooth connectivity for phones and cars, and most of those — and many navigation systems — have voice controls, says car-buying site Edmunds.

Auto Alliance spokesman Wade Newton says members believe “voice operations are one of the ways to let people do what they’ve come to expect to be able to do with today’s technology, while still keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.” But Strayer notes “hands on the wheel and eyes on the road isn’t safe if the mind is not on the drive.”

Voice controls “have promise,” but are “far from distraction-free,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Bryan Reimer, who is researching cognitive distraction with funding from Toyota.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety spokesman Russ Rader calls voice controls an “unsettled area of research,” but he notes crash rates “are plunging,” including both fatal crashes and fender benders. IIHS expected both would increase as cellphone usage did.