Sunday, March 22, 1998

Auto industry focusing attention on gadget overload

By ARTHUR J. CUMMINS Dow Jones News Service

DETROIT (Dow Jones News) - As automakers and parts suppliers introduce a host of electronic gadgets for cars and trucks, worries about driver distraction are starting to be translated into industry guidelines.

The Big Three U.S. automakers, the Society of Automotive Engineers, federal regulators and independent researchers are studying the harmful effects on drivers of gadgets like global positioning system-based navigation systems, cellular telephones and car-mounted personal computers.

"We're very cognizant of driver overload and driver distraction," said Robert Shumacher, director for advanced engineering at Delphi Automotive Systems, the parts subsidiary of General Motors Corp.

The SAE said at its convention in Detroit last month that it was drafting voluntary guidelines for the manufacture and installation of such devices. The Big Three are cooperating, and engineers hope they will adopt the guidelines before federal regulators impose their own rules.

The fear of sensory overload for a driver is nothing new. Worries have been voiced since cellular phones were first used in cars in the mid-1980s. But with the introduction of such high-tech options as a PC small enough to replace a radio, the danger of driver distraction has taken on new urgency.

Paul Green, a researcher at the University of Michigan, is helping the SAE draft its guidelines, studying data he has compiled on how drivers react when their attention is drawn away from the road toward gadgets. Green uses a simple driving simulator to gauge driver distraction and its effect on safety.

GM and Ford Motor Co. have unveiled high-tech options they hope to install in future models. Using these devices, drivers and passengers will be able to download e-mail, surf the Internet and receive faxes. But it's a long way between test systems and final products installed in cars and sold to consumers.

Green said he hopes his research will affect future standards for such products.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the regulatory body charged with establishing safety standards for automobiles, recently issued a 300-page report on safety problems related to cellular phone use.

In the study, NHTSA says data collected on driver distraction points to an increase in the risk of crashes while using cellular phones. The agency recommends further consumer education, careful cell-phone placement in cars and industry evaluation and monitoring of new technology. It also provides law enforcement and legislative recommendations, but admits more studies need to be done to determine the risk of cell-phone use and appropriate responses to it.