Can Apple's Siri Cause You To Wreck Your Car?

More than 65,000 people were killed in car crashes over the past two years.

According to data analyzed by Erie Insurance, one out of every 10 crashes involved a distracted driver.

Top Distractions

Of the top 10 distractions related to fatal automobile accidents, general distraction and cellphone use took the top two spots.

While a significant 12 percent of fatal distraction-related accidents were caused by cellphone use, a whopping 62 percent were blamed on “generally distracted” drivers.

General distraction could be the result of a variety of things including daydreaming, losing focus or paying attention to something besides driving.

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In an effort to deal with distraction, automobile manufacturers have turned to voice activated controls including electronic assistants such as Apple Inc.’s AAPL Siri.

Conventional wisdom was that speaking to an electronic assistant would be less distracting than pushing buttons, turning knobs and looking at screens.

AAA Foundation Research Results

Research published in October 2014 by the AAA Foundation suggested conventional wisdom was wrong.

The well-circulated results of that study indicated that when researchers used Siri to send text messages, post updates on Facebook and modify calendar appointments; the resulting distraction index reached 4 on a 5-point scale.

Those results indicated that use of the electronic assistant created a heavier mental strain than talking on a handheld cellphone or changing stations on a radio.

Inattentional Blindness

The culprit, according to University of Utah psychology professor and lead study researcher David Strayer, was a phenomenon called “inattentional blindness.”

Also known as perceptual blindness, inattentional blindness, manifests as a psychological lack of attention when something causes an individual to fail recognize something that is in plain sight.

In this case, the “something” was thought to be the back and forth conversation with Siri.

Caveats

Siri did not stand alone as “distracter-in-chief.” Strayer noted that the research did not directly compare voice controls like Siri with other control systems.

In addition, many other factors affect the risk of distraction, including placement of hands and whether or not the subject is looking away.

In fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the risk of a crash rises threefold when hand placement and visual attention are not optimum.

Apple’s Response

In a recent statement, Apple told The Wall Street Journal the University of Utah study didn’t test the version of Siri that the company had adapted to work in cars.

According to Apple, “CarPlay and Siri Eyes Free intuitively use your vehicle’s native controls so you don’t need to pick-up and look at your phone while driving. These experiences are tailored so you only have access to iPhone apps that are optimized for the car and make sense for an in-vehicle experience.”

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Is Siri Dangerous?

AAA spokesman, Wade Newton said, “This study focused on a very narrow aspect of distraction: cognitive load.”

Within the confines of that focus, Siri scored worse than other tested voice control systems.

Strayer said the research team from the University of Utah planned to replicate its testing using 2015 model automobiles with updated voice control systems.

Strayer said those results would be released in the first quarter of 2015.

At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco  had no position in any mentioned securities.