Analysis of visual distraction related to smartphone use while driving

Mobile phone distracted driving has been attracting more and more attention in road safety research as evidenced by the consistent number of studies in the field. This paper focuses on the visual distraction effect of mobile phones while driving. Visual distraction is here analyzed concerning several attributes related to the driver (gender, age and driving experience) and the road (weather, lighting, and traffic conditions). The influence of the different attributes on visual distraction is investigated through a simulated driving experiment involving 40 volunteer drivers who were asked to perform four mobile phone tasks while driving: check notifications, read text messages, talk on the phone, write a text message. The experimental results are analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Covariance (ANCOVA) methods showing that: i) when drivers perceive the worsening of environmental conditions and the related risks, they reasonably focus more on safe driving than on phone activities; ii) older drivers (50-65 years) seem to divert their visual attention from the road more frequently when performing mobile phone tasks. Compared to older drivers, younger drivers look at their phones less when they read a message and drive shorter distances without looking at the road; iii) using the mobile phone to send and read text messages while driving is confirmed to be the most visually engaging and the most demanding activity in terms of concentration required.