Texting while driving using Google Glass: Investigating the combined effect of heads-up display and hands-free input on driving safety and performance

摘要

In-vehicle driver distractions are an increasing cause of automobile accidents. Recent advances in wearableconsumer technologies impose new challenges for managing driver attention and regulating device use in thedriving context. Google Glass is a wearable interface that presents information via a heads-up display andread aloud function, neither of which obstructs the user’s view of the surrounding environment. While Glassmay benefit drivers by providing driving-related notifications, no documentation exists objectively measuringthe extent to which using Glass impacts driving performance and safety. This preliminary study comparedtexting with Google Glass to other texting methods in a driving simulation to examine driver behavior andperformance. While texting-and-driving is inadvisable, the task of texting may be constructed so that it doesnot provide information that alters the intent of the driving task, reducing confounding factors in analysis ofthe device’s impact on driving performance. The results of this study suggest that Glass performs much closerto baseline than the other technologies. Evidence from this preliminary investigation was used to form acomplete study evaluating texting-and-driving with Google Glass. Results from these studies can be used toinform developers of wearable technologies and policymakers tasked with regulating the use of these technologieswhile driving.