While not paying attention behind the wheel can be deadly, many drivers do it anyway. Fiddling with the radio, talking on the phone and gawking at accidents are just a few things drivers do that can lead to bad wrecks.

In North Texas, scientists are trying to solve that problem.

John Hansen, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, has been working on a project that studies drivers in five countries, including Japan, Italy, Singapore, Turkey and the United States. The objective is to establish an international standard on how much inattention is too much.

"The impacts from a society perspective are huge," he said.

The UTDrive vehicle is stuffed with microphones, cameras and break and accelerator sensors. It also creates an electronic image of the driver's face to study eye and head movement.

As part of the study, Hansen has studied drivers while they were distracted by talking on a cell phone. He found that drivers on phones slowed their speed down by three to five mph.

"Their ability to control and maintain the lane position is now significantly decreased because they're talking on a cell phone," he said.

Hansen said he envisions a smarter car in the future that gathers all the same information in order that the car can "know" its driver.

"On a daily basis, we could look at very small instances of how you drive and see how today is different than the way you've driven the last month," he said.

While ultimately the driver would be responsible for maintaining control, a smart car might have circuits that would know when the driver is inattentive and make corrections, including helping the driver stay in the lanes and changing the responsiveness of the steering wheel or break pedal.

"What I might do is dynamically adjust the break pedal pressure necessary to stop the car," Hansen said.

Several major companies in North Texas are monitoring Hansen's research on inattention.

"It's a big topic in the industry," said Steve LaVerde, with Texas Instruments.

Texas Instruments has an $800-million business dedicated to producing components for smart vehicle systems, and says Hansen's effort to create a baseline for distraction is good for business.

"Establishing some objective criteria usually will drive an industry forward faster," LaVerde said.

E-mail dschechter@wfaa.com