Yahoo Autos Volvo Claims America’s Youngest Use Their Phones Less While Driving
Volvo claims America’s youngest drivers are less likely to use mobile phones in the car than their parents, according to a survey conducted by Harris Insights and Analytics.
Among 1665 adults aged 18 and up, Volvo concluded that 71 percent of Gen Z drivers–according to the Pew Research Center, those born from 1997 onward–admitted to using a phone while driving. By comparison, 81 percent of Millennials (born 1981-1996) and Gen X (1965-1980) admitted the same. Baby Boomers (1946-1964) were more split, with 64 percent of older Boomers and 72 percent of younger Boomers doing so. The Silent Generation (1928-1945) calculated their phone usage in the car at 59 percent.
Those results, which Volvo used to label distracted driving as “ageless,” weren’t the only attempt by the automaker to “refute common perceptions.” It also claimed that among all ages, one-third of respondents agreed that “driving in silence” was the most popular way to reduce distractions and that from this data, “cars are a top source of solace.” Volvo likened quiet car rides to other Zen-like efforts such as “do not disturb” modes on mobile phones, noise-cancelling headphones, cancelling meetings, and not using any electronics for “one day or more.” A big issue, Volvo says, is that 92 percent of Americans admitted to “driving while worried,” a broad term that somehow correlates to specific actions like sending emails (more than 20 percent) or reading a text (about 70 percent) while driving. Those are more worrisome to Americans, the company says, than road rage, speeding, or driving under the influence.
In a separate survey of 1894 drivers ages 18 and up, 84 percent said that voice commands would be safer to control a car’s features than manually doing so. But both Volvo polls, which interpret group behavior entirely from self-reporting and incentivize completed polls with gift cards to Starbucks and other retail outlets, is not scientific. In a 2014 study by AAA that directly monitored drivers behind the wheel and on simulators, voice commands were found to cause significantly higher levels of distraction. In a follow-up study AAA released in 2017 that measured drivers interacting with infotainment systems on 30 new cars, Volvo’s Sensus Connect was deemed to be among the most distracting. It also appears that Volvo, and indeed most automakers, have done little to abide by distraction guidelines set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2013, which set 24 seconds as the maximum eyes-off time for a driver to complete a task while in motion. Too often, as the AAA study found, these systems pull a driver’s eyes onto a screen for too long.
Volvo claims its system keeps drivers “more focused on reaching their destination” despite its own inherent problems, such as slow input speeds and burying vehicle functions–such as switching off the parking sensors or adjusting the stereo tone–within submenus. Hey, that’s a topic for another survey.
We’ll agree distracted driving is a universal problem regardless of age or experience. But if Volvo and other automakers are serious about safety, they better realize how many distractions their own systems keep adding to our everyday lives.
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