Phone Use Behavior of Chinese Drivers Based on Naturalistic Driving Data

摘要

Cell phones are increasingly appearing at all kinds of daily activities. Phone use while driving is very risky for the distraction it brings. However, the variety of legislations and educational content around the world, aimed to restrict this behavior, may reflect the lack of common understanding about the influence of phone use on driver's visual and manual distraction. In this study, 137 phone use events while driving were extracted from 115 trips of 23 drivers based on Shanghai naturalistic driving data. Results showed that the average time of events is 66.7 s. Texting, talking on the phone, and browsing are the three most popular functions, which also take the first three positions in eyes-off-road time that indicates visual distraction. As for manual distraction, texting is much higher in both-hand-occupied rate among all functions. Phone use while driving also showed significant influence on lateral and longitudinal control of the vehicle.