Distraction and pedestrian safety: How talking on the phone, texting, and listening to music impact crossing the street

► Talking, texting, or listening to music may impact college student pedestrian safety. ► 138 students randomly assigned to cross a virtual street undistracted or distracted. ► Music or texting distraction caused greater likelihood of collision with vehicles. ► All distracted individuals looked away...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Accident analysis and prevention 2012-03, Vol.45 (2), p.266-271
Main Authors: Schwebel, David C., Stavrinos, Despina, Byington, Katherine W., Davis, Tiffany, O’Neal, Elizabeth E., de Jong, Desiree
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accidents, Traffic - statistics & numerical data
Adolescent
Adult
Attention
Causality
Cell Phone - statistics & numerical data
Computer Simulation
Devices
Distraction
Female
Humans
Injury
Male
Music
Pedestrian safety
Pedestrians
Phone
Risk
Safety
Street-crossing
Streets
Students - statistics & numerical data
Talking
Telephones
Text Messaging - statistics & numerical data
Text-messaging
Texting
Traffic safety
User-Computer Interface
Walking - injuries
Young Adult
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Summary:► Talking, texting, or listening to music may impact college student pedestrian safety. ► 138 students randomly assigned to cross a virtual street undistracted or distracted. ► Music or texting distraction caused greater likelihood of collision with vehicles. ► All distracted individuals looked away from the street environment more often. ► Multimedia device distraction has small but meaningful impact on pedestrian safety. As use of handheld multimedia devices has exploded globally, safety experts have begun to consider the impact of distraction while talking, text-messaging, or listening to music on traffic safety. This study was designed to test how talking on the phone, texting, and listening to music may influence pedestrian safety. 138 college students crossed an interactive, semi-immersive virtual pedestrian street. They were randomly assigned to one of four groups: crossing while talking on the phone, crossing while texting, crossing while listening to a personal music device, or crossing while undistracted. Participants distracted by music or texting were more likely to be hit by a vehicle in the virtual pedestrian environment than were undistracted participants. Participants in all three distracted groups were more likely to look away from the street environment (and look toward other places, such as their telephone or music device) than were undistracted participants. Findings were maintained after controlling for demographics, walking frequency, and media use frequency. Distraction from multimedia devices has a small but meaningful impact on college students’ pedestrian safety. Future research should consider the cognitive demands of pedestrian safety, and how those processes may be impacted by distraction. Policymakers might consider ways to protect distracted pedestrians from harm and to reduce the number of individuals crossing streets while distracted.
ISSN:0001-4575
1879-2057
DOI:10.1016/j.aap.2011.07.011