Driven to distraction?

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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 onboard 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 brainteaser.

Those are the early results from the federal government's attempt to measure how drivers deal with potential information overloads from high-tech features such as onboard navigational systems and cell phones that are being installed in automobiles.

The study, expected to be formally released in late 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," Oak Ridge scientist Philip Spelt said of the gadgets he installed in a simulator to test 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."

Spelt recognizes that some might question how often all of these systems would go off in such rapid succession. "And the answer is: All it takes is once, and if somebody is dead, they don't have to worry about it anymore," he said.

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 announced its own $10 million effort.

Many states are concerned about cell phones in particular. Eleven now ask patrol officers to determine whether the phones were factors in accidents.

The simulator Spelt created includes four systems already available or soon to be available to consumers: a cell phone, a forward collision-warning system, a navigational system and an Internet-equipped computer screen.

He threw in occasional math questions to determine how much of the driver's "mental capacity is devoted to dealing with these devices and driving the car, and how much do they have left over."

Spelt tested 18 men and 18 women, ages 20 to 50. Each drove the simulator about 45 minutes, covering 21 virtual miles. They were asked to recall phone numbers and to stay within a speed limit.

Most did well, with little difference between men and women, Spelt said. Only two or three crashed.

"What you learn very quickly is that people learn to cope, especially when it involves their lives," he said. "But just because 90 percent of the population can cope doesn't mean it is the right way to do it."