经济学人下载:安全行驶 时刻看路

Science and technology
科学技术

Safe driving
安全行驶

Keep your mind on the road
时刻看路

Hands-free texting is more distracting to drivers than using a mobile phone
语音发短信比手机通话更容易让驾驶人分心

CARS, to paraphrase some in America's gun lobby, do not kill people.
套用美国步枪协会的说法，汽车不会杀人。

People kill people.
人杀人。

And among the people more likely than others to kill people are those distracted by their use of mobile phones and other portable electronic devices while they are driving.
在人群中，那些在开车时，使用手机或者其他便携式电子设备的人，比其他人更容易杀人。

Actually holding a phone to your ear while driving is illegal in many places.
事实上在许多地方，开车的时候将手机放在耳朵上是违法的。

But not having both hands on the wheel is only part of the problem.
但是没有把双手放在方向盘上仅仅只是一部分问题。

Another part, probably more serious, is the dissipation of attention involved.
另一部分，可能更加严重，是注意力不集中。

If further evidence of this were needed, it has just been provided in a study published by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, in Washington,

如果需要更多的证据，这可以由在华盛顿特区的美国汽车协会的交通安全基金会发表的一份研究报告提供。

DC. David Strayer and his colleagues at the University of Utah, the study's authors, looked at exactly how distracting various mental activities are to drivers.
犹他州的大卫·斯特雷耶和他的同事，这份研究报告的作者，清楚地看到了精神活动是如何使驾驶员分心。

In a world where cars are often fitted with hands-free electronic devices, what they found is worrying.
在一个汽车配备了免提式电子设备的世界里，这就是他们所担心的事情。

Dr Strayer divided 102 volunteers into three groups.
斯特雷耶博士将102名志愿者分为了三组。

Each participant performed eight tasks under the scrutiny of his team and while wearing an electrode-laden hat to record what is known as their Event-Related Brain Potentials.
 

每一位参与者要在他的队伍的监督下完成八个任务，并且是戴了一个用于记录大脑的事件相关电位的，布满电极的帽子。

The eight tasks were: doing nothing; listening to the radio; listening to an audio book; conversing with a passenger; calling a friend using a hand-held phone; calling a friend using a hands-free phone; using speech to send a text message; and, as an example of a difficult task few people engage in behind the wheel, verifying a set of mathematical equations while memorising nouns interjected between the maths problems.
这八个任务是：什么都不做；听广播；听音频书；与一位乘客交谈；用一个手持式电话呼叫一位朋友；使用免提式电话呼叫一位朋友；用语音发送一条短信；作为一个困难的任务的一个例子，少数人加入这个团体；当熟记插入到这些算术问题中的名词时，证明一系列算术等式。

The first group of volunteers performed these tasks sitting at a computer.
第一组人在电脑前完成这些任务。

The second sat in simulators resembling the interior of a car, and followed another car on a screen.
第二组坐在一个汽车模拟器里，在屏幕上他的前方有一辆车。

The third drove real cars.
第三组开真正的车。

Besides their ERPs, the volunteers' reaction times were assessed, their level of concentration was tested by studying their responses to lights shone in the periphery of their visual fields, and their subjective views of which tasks demanded most attention were recorded.
除了他们的大脑的事件相关电位外，他们的反应时间也会被评估，他们的集中程度也会通过研究他们对视野边缘的灯光闪烁的反应进行测试，还有他们对哪种任务更加需要集中精力的判断也被记录下来。

Dr Strayer then consolidated these various results into a single number that represented the overall mental distraction a task created.
斯特雷耶博士将这些不同的结果结合在一起形成一个单独的数字，用于表示一个任务所产生的综合精神分散。

Doing nothing provided a baseline value of 1.0 and juggling maths and word-memory provided an upper bound of 5.0.
什么都不做的情况设为基础值-1.0，然后尽量使用数学和字存储器产生一个更高的范围-5.0。

As might be expected, listening to the radio or to a book were the least distracting activities.
可能像预期的那样，听广播或者音频书是是最不容易使人分心的活动。

Talking to a passenger and talking on the phone were intermediate.
与一位乘客交谈和打电话是中等程度。

The most distracting, at 3.06, was hands-free texting.
最使人分心的活动的分数为3.06，是语音发短信。

On a scale where 5.0 is the most distracted it is possible to be, that is worryingly high.
在某种程度上，可能存在最使人分心的，程度为5.0的活动,那么3.06就相当高。

In attention to the road is not the only cause of traffic accidents, but it is an important one.
不集中注意力观察道路情况不是造成交通事故的唯一的原因， 但是它是最重要的。

In America, various studies have suggested that it contributes to between a quarter and a half of accidents.
在美国，许多研究表明这种情况所造成的交通事故的比率在1/4到1/2之间。

Those who think that hands-free texting is low on the list of potential driving hazards might therefore wish to think again.
那些认为语音发短信所造成的风险很小的人可能要因此重新考虑一下。