Frequency of distracting tasks people do while driving : an analysis of the ACAS FOT data.
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Get this paper ↗ (full text — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)
Summary
This report analyzes the frequency and characteristics of distracting secondary tasks performed by drivers, utilizing data from the Advanced Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) Field Operational Test (FOT). The study was conducted as part of the SAVE-IT project to support the development of a workload manager capable of assessing driving demand and suppressing additional distractions when drivers are overloaded. The research aimed to determine the types of secondary tasks, their occurrence rates, the prevalence of concurrent tasks, and how factors such as driver demographics, road conditions, and time of day influence distraction behaviors. The methodology involved a two-pass analysis of video data from the ACAS FOT, a naturalistic driving study involving approximately 100 drivers. In the first pass, a stratified sample of 2,914 four-second video clips of drivers’ faces and forward scenes was coded to identify driving conditions, gaze direction, head orientation, hand activities, and secondary tasks. The sample was balanced across age groups, sex, and road types. In the second pass, a subset of 819 clips (403 distracted, 416 normal) was examined frame-by-frame to analyze specific subtasks. Coding schemes identified tasks such as conversing, chewing gum, grooming, and cell phone use, as well as subtasks like biting lips or glancing at in-car systems. Key findings indicate that 54.9% of the sampled clips involved no secondary task, while the most common distractions were conversing (19.6%), chewing gum (9.9%), grooming (7.6%), and using a cell phone (4.8%). Concurrent tasks occurred in 7% to 16% of clips, with combinations involving conversation or chewing gum being most frequent. Demographic analysis revealed that older drivers and women engaged in conversation more frequently, whereas young drivers and men used cell phones more often. Environmental factors also influenced behavior: conversation was more common on minor roads and less frequent between midnight and 6:00 a.m. or in freezing temperatures. Cell phone use was more prevalent in lighter traffic and among younger drivers. The study also detailed specific subtask frequencies, with conversing on a phone and chewing gum being the most common individual actions. The significance of this research lies in its contribution to the design of intelligent workload managers for vehicles. By establishing baseline frequencies and identifying the specific contexts in which distractions occur, the findings provide empirical data necessary for systems that dynamically manage in-vehicle information presentation. The results highlight that distraction is not uniform but varies significantly by driver characteristics and environmental conditions, suggesting that safety systems must account for these variables to effectively mitigate risk without unnecessarily restricting driver behavior.
Key finding
Conversing was the most frequent secondary task, occurring in 19.6% of clips, while cell phone use occurred in 4.8% of clips, with conversation rates higher for older drivers and women and cell phone use higher for young men.
Methodology
naturalistic
Sample size: 2914
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | partial | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified_with_issues.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence, behavioral performance data
- Theoretical Contribution: conceptual framework