You're really hungry and there's a snack in the glove box.
Take it out and open the bag please.
Whoa!
Lionel: Hi folks, my name is Lionel Johnston here with Bison Transport.
We have a great topic to talk about today.
We are going to be looking at distracted driving, really with the goal of debunking the myth
that you can drive while distracted and still be safe.
We have a collection of three drivers-three professional drivers here at Bison Transport-that
we're going to be running through different scenarios.
First of all, we have Mike.
He is a professional Driver at Bison, he's been with us since 1997, a great example of
what a professional Driver is in our industry and has well o ver 2 million safe driving miles.
We also have one of our trainees from our new driver finishing program, Navdeep,
and he's actually in his second year, so he's in phase two of that program.
And also we have Roberto, who is actually an In-cab Instructor, but what's interesting
with his scenario is he started out as a new Driver many years ago and has now come full
circle to be an In-cab Instructor to educate more new Drivers like he once was.
Okay, so just before we jump into the scenarios, I'm going to take a moment to introduce you
to and speak with Eric Roeder from Driver Development.
All right, so Eric, this command center here looks pretty interesting.
So, tell me, what are we able to see here, you know, from this point of view?
Eric: Well, it's very interesting.
We actually have an overhead view, kind of as-the-crow-flies view, and then we've got
the front view out of the cab of the truck.
Lionel: So, this is what the Driver is able to see right here, then?
Eric: Exactly.
And then we've got the rearview that are essentially their mirrors.
Lionel: Okay.
Eric: And on top of that we have a monitor here with a camera in the cab that allows
us to see, you know, what the Driver's up to, the kind of facial expressions or if they're
reaching for something we'll be able to see that in that monitor as well.
Lionel: Okay.
So, for example, if someone is making a merge and they're signaling but they're not shoulder-checking,
would we be able to see that with this set-up?
Eric: Exactly.
That's exactly the type of thing we would be able to see and that we look for.
And this particular scenario that we're gonna be running is in fact a highway scenario.
The Driver is going to merge onto a highway with a fair amount of traffic on the highway
and there are some stopped vehicles on the side of the road as well.
The other vehicles in this scenario are random and as such they could do unexpected things
just like vehicles in real traffic would do.
Lionel: So, with the exception of forcing them to take certain...do things like taking
a phone call, this is a pretty real-life scenario we're going through here.
Eric: Absolutely.
It's just like driving in regular highway traffic.
So, there's really a lot to deal with in this scenario and it'll be interesting to see how
Drivers deal with this facing multiple distractions: texting, phone call, and reaching for a snack.
Lionel: Wow. Sounds great.
Well, how about we get started?
(dramatic music)
*BING*
Lionel: If you get a text, please send us a quick response.
Lionel: Oh, there he goes.
Lionel: Oh boy!
Eric: Right.
*BING*
Lionel: See as soon as he gets a notification, his eyes go down. Right?
Lionel: Did...did he respond already?
Eric: He's so busy trying to text, he missed the police car up ahead.
Lionel: Yeah.
And he should be in the left lane here, should he not?
Eric: Yes.
Well, he should have tried at least, but yeah.
Lionel: Okay, there's a snack for you in the...
glove box.
Lionel: Take it out and open the bag, please.
Mike: Whoa!
Lionel: Oh, look at that.
Oh.
Drifted almost straight off the road.
Look at that.
Whoa!
Immediately...whoa!
And that happened, that happened so quick. Right?
Eric: Yeah.
Lionel: You can see people probably thinking, "Oh, I can just grab this, no problem."
*RINGTONE*
Lionel: Answer the phone please.
Whoa, look at that.
Eric: Holy...
Hello?
Roberto: Hello.
Eric: Hey Roberto, how's it going?
Roberto: Not too bad. How about you, man?
Eric: Ah, not bad, not bad.
Mike: Kay...
Mike: You're going to get me into an accident here.
Eric: What's going on?
Mike: I'm in a construction zone and I'm talking on the phone.
Eric: And it sounds like you might be drive...are you driving?
Roberto: I am.
I'm just on my way to Wisconsin.
Eric: Oh, jee. Wow. I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to distract you.
Roberto: Oh, that's okay.
I shouldn't have been answering the phone.
Navdeep: I will call you back once I'm free.
Eric: Sorry to bug you while you're driving.
I hope you don't miss your exit.
Bye.
Mike: I'll try not to.
Okay.
Bye.
Lionel: All right, great job.
You can just pull over up ahead and we're all done.
Okay, Roberto, great job.
I know we threw a lot of different variables at you there, so we texted you a whole bunch
of times.
It was like, "Hey, are you there?
Are you busy?
Why aren't you responding?"
That sort of thing, right.
And then a phone call and then reaching for a snack in the glove box.
So, all things that are not unreasonable that they could happen to a typical driver, but
what were your observations going through this scenario?
Obviously, these aren't things you'd do in the real world, but what was your experience?
Navdeep: It was very hard.
Roberto: Doing what I do, right?
I know that distractions are very dangerous in our line of work so I knew it'd be difficult
trying to perform this today, but...yeah.
It was quite challenging.
Mike: It was very hard.
Very hard and losing a perspective on the road is just...better not to have the distractions.
Lionel: Yeah.
Out of the different distractions, between the texts and the phone call and the
snack, was there one that you found more distracting than the others?
Roberto: Ah, texting, absolutely.
Trying to spell things correctly and understand the conversation.
Right?
Looking down at the phone and keeping my eyes on the road at the same was next to impossible.
Mike: As soon as I reached down for the phone I seemed to drift.
And then when I looked back up, then I was like way off the road and I just...it was
kind of hard to get back into position.
Navdeep: Couple of times I was out of my way on the left lane or the shoulder.
That could of caused big collision and big problem.
Lionel: For sure.
Yeah, and, you know, there are a couple scenarios where there was a police car and a truck on
the side of the road and you were actually in the right lane and where normally you would've
been in the left, but you were distracted.
Navdeep: Yeah, I didn't have much time...I was texting.
Mike: With the distractions, it just takes your eyes off the road and you just can't
focus properly and then if there's an emergency on the road, it's almost impossible to adjust
in time.
Lionel: One thing that really surprised me was how quickly you could see the distracted
driving in your driving.
And with a snack, for example, as soon as you reached, as soon as you looked away from
the road and went to reach, your truck immediately still went straight, almost straight into
the ditch. Right?
Are there other distractions that you've, you know, seen some of your students do that
maybe we haven't covered today?
Roberto: Yeah, a lot of the times my students, they try to reach for the radio and try to
find a station while driving.
That's a big distraction, I find.
Naldeep: As we know, our speed limit is only 62 miles per hour.
But, in United States some truckers have more speed limit than us.
All of a sudden, they started screaming on you, or giving you honks or showing you fingers.
That could distract you, too.
Lionel: Yeah, that's one thing that we haven't talked about much in this video, but yeah.
With someone having road rage or driving aggressively-that is definitely distracting their ability to
drive safely.
So, yeah. That's a great point.
What could a driver do to eliminate those types of distractions?
Mike: Try to take the distractions right out of the picture.
Roberto: Always remember your job at hand, right, is the road and focus on the road.
That phone call's not that important.
You can always pull over and make that phone call. Right?
It's more important to see the person at the end of the day then to talk to, via text or
phone call at that time. Right?
Navdeep: Texting or calling someone can distract you.
And even it's a semi-truck or a four-wheeler, can cause a big problem as well.
Lionel: So, really the distractions are the same whether you're driving a big truck or
a car or a motorcycle.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much for the advice and your comments with all your expertise.
Definitely very helpful.
Lionel: Appreciate your time in helping us with this project.
Naldeep: No problem.
Roberto: My pleasure.
Lionel: All right.
Roberto: Thank you very much.
Lionel: So, this video here was shot in a controlled environment.
But really the purpose of this exercise today was to be able to show how serious the consequences
can be around distracted driving.
If you really look at a professional Driver, they're driving a tractor and a trailer.
That's 80,000 pounds approximately going down the highway at highway speeds.
We really need to make sure that we are making a commitment to avoid all distractions.
Some stats that say that anytime you have a distraction, whether it's a text message
or it's a phone call or you reach for your sunglasses and they drop on the floor...anytime
a distraction like that happens, you immediately miss out on approximately 50% of the information
that you need to be able to drive safely.
So, if you know that you may get text messages on your phone or notifications, or if you
know that someone may be phoning you, or, you know, it's reasonable that you're going
to get hungry during a long leg on your trip, make sure that you're planning for those things
in advance.
Whatever you need to do, make sure that the distractions are minimized because when we're
in the heat of the moment those distractions happen to us, it's
a lot harder to avoid them, than if we would've eliminated them all well in advance.