Motorists Using Touchscreens in Cars Are Being Distracted

使用触摸屏会使驾驶员分心

Voice recognition is much safer

语音控制则更加安全

Step inside most modern cars and instead of all the dials and switches that used to clutter the dashboard you are likely to find it dominated by a touchscreen. Often there is more than one screen, and some are bigger than those on a laptop. But, though touchscreens provide a convenient way to operate a multitude of controls and settings, the latest research shows they can also be dangerous distractions.

坐进大多数现代汽车，你或许会发现，中控台那里不再是各种旋钮和开关，而是一块触摸屏。有些车往往具有不止一块触摸屏，有的触摸屏甚至比笔记本电脑的屏幕还要大。虽然使用触摸屏进行各种操作和设置很方便，但最新的研究发现，它们也会使驾驶员分心，从而造成危险。

To discover how badly touchscreens distract drivers, Neale Kinnear and his colleagues at the Transport Research Laboratory, a former British-government agency now run as an independent test facility, arranged a series of experiments.

为了弄清楚触摸屏究竟会对驾驶员造成多大的干扰，英国交通运输研究实验室（一家前英国政府机构）的尼尔·金尼尔和他的同事开展了一系列实验。

They recruited two groups of 20 drivers. One consisted of regular users of Google’s Android Auto, a popular “infotainment” app which lets drivers interact with their phone through a car’s touchscreen. The others were partisans of Android Auto’s main rival, Apple CarPlay.

他们招募了两组各20名驾驶员。其中一组是谷歌Android Auto（一款广受欢迎的车载“信息娱乐”应用程序，使驾驶员可以通过触摸屏与手机互动）的老用户，另一组则是苹果CarPlay（Android Auto的主要竞争对手）的忠实粉丝。

Each participant completed three 15 minute journeys along a set virtual route using the laboratory’s sophisticated driving simulator. On one of these trips they had to carry out tasks using only the touchscreen.

每位参与者都会使用实验室最先进的驾驶模拟器沿着设定好的虚拟路线行驶三段各15分钟的路程。在第一段行程中，参与者只能使用触摸屏完成任务。

These tasks included navigating to a restaurant, playing a particular song on Spotify (a music service), changing radio channels, getting the system to read out a text message, and making a “hands-free” telephone call. On the second trip they had to do the same, but using only the car’s voice-activated controls instead. The third journey was a control, with no assigned tasks.

任务包括导航至一家餐厅、在Spotify（一个音乐服务平台）上点播一首特定的歌曲、切换广播频道、让系统朗读一条短信以及拨打一通“免提”电话。在第二段行程中，他们需要完成同样的任务，但只能使用语音控制系统来完成。作为对照，第三段行程没有任何任务。

Whenever a red bar flashed on the windscreen the researchers measured how long it took a driver to react by pulling the indicator stalk to flash the car’s lights. As they expected, drivers using touch controls on the screen took longer to respond to the flashing bar than did those using voice controls. Though the difference might be less than a second, at motorway speeds this would result in an increased stopping distance of up to 25 metres.

每当挡风玻璃上的红色条带闪烁时，驾驶员会拨动指示杆以控制车灯闪烁，研究人员便会记录下驾驶员做出反应所需的时间。正如研究人员所料，相比语音控制，驾驶员在使用触摸屏进行操作时对闪烁的条带做出反应所需的时间更长。虽然相差可能不到一秒，但如果行驶在高速公路上，这将使刹车距离增加25米。

Dr Kinnear was, however, surprised by the amount of time drivers’ attention was diverted by the series of glances needed to operate the screen. Among the worst outcomes were a mean of 20 seconds of cumulative glances using Android Auto to play a song on Spotify, and of 16 seconds to set up the route to a restaurant with CarPlay. For voice commands those means fell to four and three seconds respectively.

然而，司机因不断瞥向屏幕进行操作致使注意力分散的时间之久令金尼尔感到惊讶。结果中耗时最长的分别是，使用Android Auto在Spotify上点播一首歌平均累计耗时20秒，使用CarPlay设置前去一家餐厅的导航耗时16秒。而使用语音控制分别仅需4秒和3秒。

The researchers calculated that reaction times to the red bar when the touchscreen was being employed were more than 50% longer than standard for some tasks. This was worse than the 46% impairment found in a previous simulator study looking at the effects of using a hand-held mobile phone while driving, which is banned in many countries.

研究人员经计算发现，，驾驶员在使用触摸屏完成某些任务时，对红色条带做出反应的时间比对照组长50%以上。此前的一项模拟研究发现，驾驶员在驾驶途中使用手机会使反应时间增加46%，因此许多国家禁止驾驶员在驾驶途中使用手机，而触摸屏对驾驶员造成的影响比手机更严重。

Dr Kinnear and his colleagues have urged vehicle-safety bodies to impose standards that limit the use of overly distracting tasks on a car’s touchscreen.

金尼尔和他的同事已经敦促有关车辆安全机构制定相关标准，以限制使用汽车触摸屏完成会使驾驶员过度分心的任务。

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