An opportunity for convergence? Understanding the prevalence and risk of distracted driving through the use of crash databases, crash investigations, and other approaches.

Abstract

A variety of methodologies for understanding the prevalence of distracted driving, its risk, and other aspects of driver secondary activity, have been used in the last 15 years. Although the current trend is toward naturalistic driving studies, each methodology contributes certain elements to a better understanding that could emerge from a convergence of these efforts. However, if differing methods are to contribute to a common and robust understanding of driver distraction, it is critical to understand the strengths and limitations of each method. This paper reviews several of the non-naturalistic methods. It suggests that "convergence science" - a more concerted and rigorous effort to bring different approaches together into an integrative whole - may offer benefits for identification and definition of issues and countermeasure development to improve driving safety.