U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on April 23 released distraction guidelines that encourage automobile manufacturers to limit the distraction risk connected to electronic devices built into their vehicles, such as communications, entertainment and navigation devices.

"Distracted driving is a deadly epidemic that has devastating consequences on our nation's roadways," said LaHood. "These guidelines recognize that today's drivers appreciate technology, while providing automakers with a way to balance the innovation consumers want with the safety we all need. Combined with good laws, good enforcement and good education, these guidelines can save lives."

Issued by the DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the voluntary guidelines establish specific recommended criteria for electronic devices installed in vehicles at the time they are manufactured. The guidelines pertain to devices that require drivers to take their hands off the wheel or eyes off the road to use them.

The guidelines include recommendations to limit the time -- two seconds at a time and 12 seconds total -- that a driver must take his eyes off the road to perform any task. The guidelines also recommend disabling several operations unless the vehicle is stopped and in park, such as:

• Manual text entry for the purposes of text messaging and Internet browsing

• Video-based entertainment and communications like video phoning or video conferencing

• Display of certain types of text, including text messages, web pages and social media content.

The recommendations outlined in the guidelines are consistent with the findings of a new NHTSA naturalistic driving study, The Impact of Hand-Held and Hands-Free Cell Phone Use on Driving Performance and Safety Critical Event Risk. The study showed that visual-manual tasks associated with hand-held phones and other portable devices increased the risk of getting into a crash by three times.

"The new study strongly suggests that visual-manual tasks can degrade a driver's focus and increase the risk of getting into a crash up to three times," said David L. Strickland, NHTSA administrator. "The new guidelines and our ongoing work with our state partners across the country will help us put an end to the dangerous practice of distracted driving by limiting the amount of time drivers take their eyes off the road, hands off the wheel and their attention away from the task of driving."

The study found text messaging, browsing and dialing resulted in the longest duration of drivers taking their eyes off the road. Text messaging increased the risk of a crash or near-crash by two times and resulted in the driver's eyes off the road for an average of 23.3 seconds total. Visual-manual activities performed when completing a phone call – such as reaching for a phone, looking up a contact and dialing the number – increased the risk by three times.

The study did not find a direct increased crash risk from the specific act of talking on a cell phone. However, the manual-visual interactions involved with using a hand-held phone made its overall use 1.73 times more risky, since the use of these devices involves visual-manual tasks 100% of the time. Even portable hands-free and in-vehicle hands-free cell phone use was found to involve visual-manual tasks at least 50% of the time, which are associated with higher risk.

View NHTSA'sPhase I distraction guidelines for automakers

View NHTSA'snew study on hand-held versus hands-free cell phone use