While speed and lane deviation are affected by driver distraction, experience doesn’t necessarily count, according to a new study.

Swinburne University Psychophysiology Honours student Suzanne Ftouni investigated driving and distractions and the effects of experience, age and sex of the driver.

She specifically looked at how a driver’s control of the vehicle on the road is affected when distracted as well as measuring changes in heart rate and brain electrical activity.

Twenty participants were recruited and categorised by the amount of driving experience they had, their age and their sex. They were required to ‘drive’ a simulator along a simple country road developed for the experiment while connected to a heart rate monitor and an electroencephalogram.

As they drove along the track they undertook a distracter task that involved entering a series of numbers into a scrambled key pad.

Increases in heart rate suggested that the driver was experiencing additional stress, whereas lower levels of electrical alpha activity in the brain suggested the driver was applying more concentration.

As expected, the study found that overall a driver’s speed and lane deviation were affected by the distracter task. Compared to when driving without the distracter task, participants drove at lower speeds when distracted.

“Overall, the results suggest that distractions significantly increase a driver’s workload, causing attention to the primary task of driving to divide in order to allow the driver to deal with the secondary distracter task,” Ftouni said.

Older drivers were found to drive at lower mean speeds than younger drivers. However, despite expectations, no differences were found between experienced and inexperienced drivers in these tasks.

Ftouni also found that females concentrated more, as estimated by changes in brain alpha activity and appeared to deviate from the lane more often than males.

“Younger drivers are over-represented in car accidents so further research into the differences between novice and experienced drivers is warranted. Further investigations may also help develop more enhanced driver training and target specific groups for education on the dangers of driving while distracted.”