Road radio risks: listening to the radio a hazard?

We all know it is dangerous to use the phone while driving. Even hands-free a phone conversation can distract you from what is in front of you on the road. What about listening to the radio though? Can you maintain focus and drive while listening to the radio? You have probably said a comfortable “yes” to that but according to a new study people are distracted from driving by the radio in fact so much so that they could miss an elephant by the side of the road.

The new study was based on the “perceptual load theory” of attention which states that you only have a finite amount of attention at your disposal and once you reach your limit you can’t process any more information. In particular this new study was designed to see if overload of one sense, hearing, might impact another sense, sight. To test how this related to driving the researchers had subjects use a full scale driving simulator. The subjects had the radio on while they were driving and half of them were asked to listen out for when the traffic reporter voice changed from a male voice to a female voice, a relatively low attentional load. The rest of the subjects were asked to listen for a specific traffic updates on a specific road, the N248.

It doesn't mean radios need to be banned from cars but it does mean that they do impact your attention.

While the subjects drove their simulated car the researchers measured aspects of their driving performance and also there in the occasional visual surprise like an elephant or a gorilla by the side of the road. You would think that even if you were waiting for a specific traffic announcement you would still notice a great ape or tusked pachyderm by the roadside. However, of the low attentional load group (those listening for the change in voice) only 71 per cent reported seeing an animal and in the high load group (those waiting for the news on a specific road) only 23 per cent noticed the creature.

The high load group also did worse at obeying traffic signals, recalling what vehicles had just passed, maintaining appropriate lane position, and reaction time.

It doesn’t mean radios need to be banned from cars but it does mean that they do impact your attention. Maybe we need to spend less time talking about the elephant in the room and spend a little time considering the elephant by the roadside.