Secondary tasks while driving effects and countermeasures

The study evaluates the possibility to avoid negative effects of secondary tasks by either designing secondary tasks to use different resources than needed for driving or by reducing the driver’s workload by means of an advanced driver assistance system. 5 subjects drove in a driving simulator with and without two different secondary tasks with and without an assistance system in a within-subjects design. The secondary task requiring the same resources as the driving task interfered more strongly with driving than the other task. However, even for this secondary task negative effects were found in special situations, e.g., car-following at straight sections of the road. Thus, not all problems introduced by secondary tasks may be solved by simply using different resources. The assistance system resulted in much better lane-keeping even when engaging in the secondary tasks. Thus, driver assistance systems can be adapted to counteract negative effects of secondary tasks.