Study: Car Infotainment a Looming Public Safety Crisis

Just as Apple starts bringing a special version of Siri into cars, an AAA study throws a bucket of cold water on the next step in "safe infotainment" for the latest vehicles. The study found that of all the typical in-car activities studied, speech-to-text systems were "the most cognitively distracting."

The study results were expressed in workload ratings, where a baseline number of 1.0 was assigned to a single driver without any distractions inside the car. Listening to the radio was rated 1.21, having a passenger in the car, 2.33, and talking on a cellphone, 2.45 (with hands-free cellphone use rated at 2.27). Most dangerous was listening and responding to email using speech-to-text, garnering a 3.06 rating on the cognitive distraction scale.