Distractions are frequent and are known to contribute to road accidents. Research is typically undertaken in psychology, engineering and design,   and accident analysis and it usually draws on data collected from questionnaires and crash statistics or in experimental driving simulators and test situations,prior research has identified many forms of distractions, such as mobile phones, entertainment systems, eating and drinking, and conversation with passengers and studied their impact on the driver’s behaviour, often with respect to various driver characteristics, such as age or gender.

The research has studied for example how much time of driving is spent on distracting behaviour and to what extent they are contributing factors in accidents.

Some research has also studied how distracting activities led to driving performance errors(e.g. lane deviation or missed traffic signs). Nevertheless, relatively little is still known about how distractions emerge, are managed and solved in real-world driving situations.

This study supplements prior research by drawing on data recorded in real-life driving situations (with no testing or planning involved) and by introducing and using a methodology that has not to date been used in driving safety research. It examines the real-time nature and occurrence and the diversity of in-car distractions and their potential impact on driving activities.

Distraction is defined as a visible outcome of some event, action or feature in the driving situation inside the car that impacts driving activities so that it, for example, involves the driver looking away from the road, removing a hand from the wheel, reorienting the body away from forwards driving activity or in other ways attending to something other than driving.

It also studies how different distractions cooccur, relate to and lead to one another. Although there is growing public awareness of the significance of driving distractions (especially mobile phones and GPS navigators) and laws to regulate them, there is little knowledge of the nature and potential impact of some of these distractions on driving.