Effects of executive load on crashes and near-crashes for young versus older drivers

With the increasing use of infotainment systems in vehicles, secondary tasks requiring executive demand may increase crash risk, especially for young drivers. Naturalistic driving data were examined to determine if secondary tasks with increasing executive demand would result in increasing crash risk. Data were extracted from the Second Strategic Highway Research Program Naturalistic Driving Study, where vehicles were instrumented to record driving behavior and crash/near-crash data. executive and visual-manual tasks paired with a second executive task (also referred to as dual executive tasks) were compared to the executive and visual-manual tasks performed alone. Crash/near-crash odds ratios were computed by comparing each task condition to driving without the presence of any secondary task. Dual executive tasks resulted in greater odds ratios than those for single executive tasks. The dual visual-manual task odds ratios did not increase from single task odds ratios. These effects were only found in young drivers. The study shows that dual executive secondary task load increases crash/near-crash risk in dual task situations for young drivers. Future research should be conducted to minimize task load associated with vehicle infotainment systems that use such technologies as voice commands.