Texting While Driving Is Preventing a Sixth Sense from Kicking In, Study Shows

And that's largely true, meaning that very few accidents happen that way. But what it lacks in immediate danger, it more than makes up for when it comes to its longer-term implications. It's just like drugs: you start with the light stuff that doesn't do any particular harm, but it paves the way towards the really bad stuff that would have otherwise remained out of reach.

Texting while driving is the same. If you start doing it, even though at first you don't take any risks and it seems completely safe, you gradually start to gain more and more confidence. You pull out your phone at ever greater speeds and, before you know it, you're blasting down the highway at 80 mph while telling your significant other to pick up bread on their way home.

We don't know if there's any study to prove that people who text at low speeds are likely to do so under more complex conditions later on, but it seems very likely. It's human nature, after all. A new study conducted by the University of Houston and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) did prove, however, just how dangerous doing it would be.

Instead of focusing solely on the distraction caused by composing a message on the phone, the study also took into account the effects of absent-mindedness and being upset, as some sort of control markers. Fifty-nine subjects were asked to drive a specific segment of highway (on a simulator) four times: under normal conditions, while distracted with cognitively challenging questions, while distracted with emotionally charged questions and while preoccupied with texting trivialities.

The authors of the study analyzed the steering wheel movement under all conditions and came up with a surprising result. No, it's not about texting while driving: that's definitely bad. All three situations when stress was applied were marred by a jittery handling of the vehicle, but it only translated into lane deviations and unsafe driving in the case of texting. For the other two, however, the jittery steering resulted in straighter trajectories than under normal driving.

How is this possible? The researchers conclude it all has to do with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). It is the one responsible for the jittery movement under stressful conditions, but it's also the one that evens it out by applying equal and opposite jitters to each of the driver's arms. With both hands on the wheel, this results in a controlled and safe driving experience. When holding the phone with one hand... you can do the math on yourself.

“The driver’s mind can wander and his or her feelings may boil, but a sixth sense keeps a person safe at least in terms of veering off course,” Pavlidis said. “What makes texting so dangerous is that it wreaks havoc into this sixth sense. Self-driving cars may bypass this and other problems, but the moral of the story is that humans have their own auto systems that work wonders, until they break,” concluded Ioannis Pavlidis, the lead researcher from the University of Houston.