Think you’re being safe because you’re using the voice-to-text option on your phone when behind the wheel? Guess what- new stats say dictating your texts is no safer than typing them out while driving.
A new study conducted by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute is based on the performance of 43 research participants driving an actual vehicle on a closed course. Drivers first navigated the course without any use of cell phones. Each driver then traveled the course three more times performing a series of texting exercises – once using each of two voice-to-text applications and once texting manually. Researchers measured the time it took each driver to complete the tasks and how long it took for the drivers to respond to a light which came on at random intervals during the exercises.
Here are the results, from the Texas A&M website.