 |
|
 | |
 | |
 Yellow Pages |
 Find the ideal
job |
| ajc.com Georgia state flag: Save it or waive it?
 |
|
Duncan Mansfield - Associated Press Monday, January 22, 2001 Oak Ridge, Tenn. --- It's a sunny day and you're taking a virtual drive down a two-lane road inside the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. All of a sudden, a truck pulls out from the shoulder and the forward collision-warning system starts beeping. You brake, then an electronic voice announces: "Incoming Internet news." While trying to scan headlines on a dash-mounted computer screen, the cell phone rings. Then more Internet news arrives. Another voice poses a question: "If your car gets 12 miles to the gallon, how many gallons will you need to travel 96 miles?" Still pondering the math, you hear the on-board navigation system's electronic voice command: "Turn left ahead." An arrow appears on the computer screen. You miss the turn. So do one out of six drivers who take the test. Some don't answer the phone. Others ignore the Internet or can't remember what they read. Under the circumstances, even the third-grade math problem becomes a brain teaser. Those are the early results from the federal government's first attempt to measure how drivers deal with a potential information overload from an array of high-tech features being installed in automobiles, such as on-board navigation systems and cell phones. The study --- expected to be formally released late this summer --- is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative, which promotes in-vehicle devices that can warn drivers of dangerous situations, recommend actions or even assume partial control to avoid accidents. "All the stuff in there is based on actual systems," ORNL senior scientist Philip Spelt said of the gadgets he installed in a simulator to test the reactions of 36 drivers. Although numbers are still being crunched, Spelt said the overall outcome already is obvious: "People who got bombarded with three or four devices all at once had more trouble dealing with the whole situation than people where we spread them out." Automakers are launching their own investigations. General Motors last fall announced a three-year, $10 million study of driver interaction with cell phones and other gadgets. This month, Ford Motor Co. announced its own $10 million effort and said it had just completed its own simulator. Many states are concerned about cell phones in particular. Eleven now ask highway patrol officers to determine whether the phones were factors in traffic accidents. Thirty-seven states have considered curbs on cell phones in moving vehicles since 1995. So far, minor restrictions have been adopted by Massachusetts, California and Florida. > ON THE WEB: Oak Ridge National Laboratory:: www.csm.ornl.gov/ivisdc.html U.S. Department of Transportation: www.dot.gov
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.gif){kind=spacer}
page1/ A-section | metro news | sports | business | opinion | living | classifieds AJC Newspaper Online brought to you in partnership with AccessAtlanta | Visitor Agreement © 2000 Cox Interactive Media | Want to advertise on ajc.com? .gif){kind=spacer} |