How to lie effectively

[Tannin]

Studies have shown that about 100% of people who talk on cell phones while driving are distracted. Distracted drivers make mistakes and do things that are, at best, inconsiderate.

If you think that you can talk on your cell phone while driving with no degradation in your performance, either you're a poor driver in the first place or deluded.

This is a classic example of the hard-shouted half-truth that people all too often substitute for genuine science and actual knowledge. (Not that you were shouting, I hasten to add, Sechs - you just happeed to spout an ideal example of the sort of nonsense that most people seem, these days, to be unable to distinguish from truth.)

So what is it about talking on a mobile phone that "degrades performance"?

Reduction of attention to the primary task at hand, one assumes. (For, as Sechs points out, driving a potentially lethal missile surely does count as the primary task, no matter what else one happens to be doing at the time.)

Seems simple enough, doesn't it. The more attention one has to spare for the primary task, the better one is able to perform it. Or so one assumes.

This, in a word, is unscientific crap. Or, more accurately, it is a half truth. It is true if and only if the primary task is capable of (a) being performed more effectively than one can perform it with partial attention, and (b) is capable of absorbing one's entire attention for more than a few moments.

Let's look at those (a) and (b) parts more carefully:

Some tasks require every single quantum of attention and concentration that one can muster. Flying a fighter aircraft in combat is one. Batting at cricket is another. In fact, every sport has its moments when, to do well, one must concentrate 100%. Oh, and there are moments when driving fits into this category also: entering a multi-lane roundabout is a good example; dealing with multiple lane changes while slow traffic enters a fast-moving freeway is another; any full-on emergency moment, such as having to brake hard and avoid a kangaroo on an outback road is a third.

Notice, however, that these "100% concentration required" tasks are relatively short. When batting, for example, one concentrates at 100% for only a few moments while the ball is being bowled and struck, the rest of the time one does one's best to relax, to prepare mind and body for the next 100% moment. It's the same in other sports (if often not to quite so predictable a pattern as the succession of six fast balls an over).

Even that extraordinarily brutal and disgusting "sport" known as boxing follows the same general pattern: periods of fierce concentration followed by periods of rest. (They ring a bell so that the average boxing fan, who is probably not too bright, can tell which is which.) But jokes aside, this is done for a reason. It's not for the competitors - let's face it, why on earth would anyone make up rules to protect the competitors in a "sport" the entire object of which is to batter one or both human beings into a senseless pulp? No, it's for the convenience of the spectators: people simply can't concentrate for long enough to "enjoy" (if that's the right word) the action if it goes on for too long at a time.

In a nutshell, it is near-impossible for the average person to concentrate on any one single thing for more than a short period of time. That is why everything we do is punctuated with breaks. (That is why, for example, I'm breaking this long post up into paragraphs - because none of you could concentrate for long enough to read it if it was all in one great slab of text, nor would it be easy to write.)

So what do we do in-between "concentration moments"? Rest?

Not really. We remain active - always mentally active, quite often physically active too - ever watched a boxer skipping up and down between rounds? - but we do something different. We allow our minds to wander a bit, so that when the next "concentration moment" arrives we will be ready for it.

Most tasks, of course, do not require full concentration. They can be performed every bit as effectively without full and conscious attention. In some cases, more effectively.

Stop! Notice how you are breathing. Observe the in and out rhythms of your breath. Do this for 30 to 60 seconds. Think hard about it. Control every action. Concentrate!

There. Did you breathe any better? Are your lungs in better shape now than they were a minute ago? Do you think you could thing about breathing and nothing else for five minutes? Thirty minutes? Eight hours straight?

Every try making love by concentrating hard on what you are doing, the same way you concentrate on driving off the 7th tee? (But hopefully for somewhat longer.) I think you get my drift.

This leads me to ponder attention spans and - finally - to return to driving. The vast majority of driving does not require great coordination or instant reactions, but it does require unbroken attention. And yet the great majority of driving does not provide sufficient mental stimulation to retain one's attention! This is the great trap of the road: you have to stay alert, but nothing much is going on most of the time - and as we just discovered with our little breathing experiment, it's not possible for ordinary humans to concentrate completely on anything that does not provide sufficient stimulation for any length of time.

Here, at last, we get to the nub of the matter: important enough to put in bold type:

For any given activity, there is a stimulus level at which the human is most effective.

More than that level, and you foul up. (You are having an argument with your kids in the back seat, trying to urgently dial an out of state number on your mobile phone, switching the windscreen wipers up to full speed because the rain is getting worse, hoping you won't be late for work, and going through a busy intersection with a Kenworth 18 wheeler up your backside. You can't process all that information in the time available, and you inevitably fuck up - hopefully by dialing a wrong number, not by investigating the underside of the Kenworth.)

Less than that level and you foul up. Look, this ain't rocket science. You can do it with lab rats, never mind people. Give a lab rat a task that requires a moderate amount of concentration. Reward with food, punish with shocks as appropriate. The rat will do very well. Make the task a lot harder: there is too much information to process, the rat stresses out and starts making mistakes. (Just like a human in heavy traffic.) Make the task a lot easier, and whgat happens? Yup, the rat fucks up. Psychology 101. Read the literature.

The application of this basic rule of animal behaviour to road safety should be obvious. Road engineers have known about it for many decades. (Why do you think they put curves in freeways every so often? Sometimes it's to avoid a hill or cross a river, but mostly it's a conscious road safety design decision. Too long a straight stretch and people zone out, with fatal results.)

Where the amount of stimulation is too little, it is vitally important to add extra stimulation (any kind) in order to get the human in charge of the vehicle up into the "safety zone" where they can drive effectively. There are lots of ways to do this, not just road engineering. Most of them are supplied by the driver himself. (Turn on the radio, light a cigarette, chew some gum, whatever.)

Naturally, where there is too much stimulation (more traffic, lots of lights, tricky lane markings) you need to reduce the flow of information and decision-making, so as to get the human back into the effective zone. The easy way is to slap on a speed limit. (Good drivers, of course, and even quite a lot of bad drivers, have enough sense to do this for themselves.)

Ever notice how so many people want to speed a bit? Why do we all like to do this? One reason is that if we travel, on average, 5 mph faster than the traffic around us, we get more variety. Instead of following the same green Ford the whole damn way, things happen. Sibconsciously, we feel better, and in general we make better driving decisions because we are "in the zone".

The trouble comes, of course, when everybody tries to drive 5 mph faster than everybody else. This soon escalates into freeway madness, and it's terrifying: everybody is outside their comfort zone, and everybody is making bad decisions. You probably meet lots of this in the US. I rarely see it these days, since I left the city 20 years ago, but sometimes see it happen on long weekends or just before Christmas. Nasty!

Anyway, the point is that incresing the complexity of a driver's workload (e.g., by having him talk on the telephone) is not always a bad thing. Indeed, under certain circumstances (such as long, empty roads with little else to do for hours at a time bar drive much too fast or zone out with boredom and cruise on sideways into the scenery) a mobile phone conversation will be a considerable aid to concentration, and thus safety.

It all depends on the circumstances.

 

[P5-133XL]

I disagree with your arguement against cell-phones and driving. What you are saying may be correct but it is not the important issue involved. Lets go back to your driving example. First I will agree that there is a trade-off between stimulation and alertness. But that is not the problem with cell-phones and driving mistakes.

Driving is a bursty stimulation form. That is because of what is going on around you. You need to react to that which is going on all around you. Sometimes driving on auto-pilot works but that is because the people around you are doing what is expected of them. However, when they aren't (and they do that alot, at least in the big city) then you need more alertness to react properly. If your attention is divided, for example by talking on a cell phone, then when something happens you are much less likely to react properly or in time, thereby having an accident that would otherwise be avoided, simply because your attention is on the conversation and not on the road and all the other cars where it needs to be.

My point is that this is not rocket science that needs a big theory to explain it away. This is simple common sense and that is all you need to explain the inordinate amount of fender-benders with Cell-phones involved; or children in the back-seat causing a rukus; or even the non-multitaskers that can't change a cassete tape out without causing an accident.

 

[CougTek]

I disagree. People who need to be distracted when they drive are people who are either carefree or overconfident. In urban areas at least. I'm a damn good driver, but I'm also one of the few who drive without listeing to the radio. I sometimes listen to CDs, but I notice that it does affect my driving ability to some extend, so I try to do it on a very casual basis.

Driving involves paying a constant attention to your environment. If you don't (like most), you're a public danger and you'll piss me off if I cross you (unprobable). Driving, no matter where, although it's even more important in cities, requires that you browse all your mirrors on a regular basis (at least every few seconds) and to watch your speed. Using the cruise control on the highway saves you from the last task. You also have to always show your intention to other drivers and pay attention to theirs (ie - use your flashers bunch of morons!). Let's not forget to be attentive for road signs and there's not much time left for your shitty cellular phone...unless you skip a few tasks...like the majority of road users unfortunately do.

Almost every time I cross some ass with his cell phone in the hand, I notice he's doing driving mistakes. Either he doesn't flash, doesn't pay attention to people trying to overtake him (stays on the left way despite having someone in his ass), doesn't move when the light turns green, crosses full white lines, etc. You get the picture. Cell phone users aren't the only ones to drive poorly, but they don't improve the average. People paying more attention to their stupid radio programs are no better. The focus has to remain on the road. You can add some ambience, but never to a level that will distract you from the road.

If you tell me that you drive AND talk at the same time or that you don't think that driving requires that much attention, then I'll answer that it's a good thing that you've left the city a while ago.

 

[CougTek]

My post was in reply to Tannin's. I was composing mine when Mark posted his.

 

[Fushigi]

So, drivers should be isolated from distractions? Fine. Eliminate all passenger seats as passengers are a distraction. Eliminate radios. Eliminate roll-down windows as the extra auditory information is a distraction. Eliminate cup holders. Eliminate roadside advertising. Erect tall, opaque barriers on both sides of every road. Don't allow pedestrian & non-motorized traffic. While we're at it, make every car the same color, size, and shape; we wouldn't want to be distracted by that snazzy convertible.

Do you see how stupid this is? People have been driving with distractions ever since cars went on sale.

Using a cel phone (with a hands-free kit) while driving is no more of a distraction than talking to a passenger. Less so if you don't make hand gestures while talking on the phone.

The real problem is that the majority of people no longer drive in what we were taught was a safe manner.
- How many people keep a 2+ second distance between themselves and the vehicle in front of them? If you do that around here you'll get run over.
- I think people stopped reliably using turn signals in the early 80s. Maybe earlier; I don't know as I didn't get my license until 1983.
- Few drive with their hands at "10 and 2" or even use two hands at all while driving.
- Who actually doesn't block driveways & side roads when traffic backs up (at a light or in general)?
- Why do you see more SUVs off the road than cars when it's snowing?

What's happened is that over time we've eliminated the safety margins that previously allowed us to correct for minor attention lapses. Add to that our inherent laziness and we tend to not provide other drivers with feedback that would help them (turn signals...). Also, drivers tend to concentrate only on the vehicle in front of them instead of the overall environment. Couple this with what could only be called lax law enforcement and people have no incentive to be better drivers.

"Distracted driving" is not the problem. The problem is poor driving habits/skills. Treat the problem; not the symptom.

 

[Stereodude]

- Few drive with their hands at "10 and 2" or even use two hands at all while driving.

I think 9 and 3 is recommended these days to avoid broken wrists and your hands flying in your face if the airbag should be deployed.

Still... I very rarely put my hands at 9 and 3 because its tiresome and not comfortable.

 

[P5-133XL]

And the first bad habit to be treated should be driving with cell phones in operation.

 

[jtr1962]

Interesting topic, and a big part of the problem as I see it isn't cell phone use or any other distraction, but rather not having the proper judgment of when you need to concentrate 100% on the driving task. Take city driving, for example. This is the kind I'm most familiar with, or rather city cycling. Regardless, I need to watch out for pretty much the same things as a car driver would. I find most of the time I need to devote 100% of my concentration to the task at hand. It would be the same if I were piloting an automobile. There are just too many potential hazards in city driving to say that any distraction is safe. For those reasons, prohibiting cell phone use in city driving should be an absolute. Forget hands free. It's a distraction regardless. Same thing with eating in the car, listening to the radio, or even having a conversation. Granted, at best you'll only be able to outlaw cell phone use and eating, so it's up to a driver's good judgment to not listen to the radio or engage in very heated conversations while they're driving in the city. At least you've gotten rid of two major distractions, provided the law is enforced. You could also put jammers on city streets to just make cell phones inoperative there.

In case anyone doubts the validity of what I'm saying, a few months ago I was having a pretty deep conversation with my mom in her car. She's been driving for over 30 years and is generally a decent driver. Anyway, she starting turning right down a street in the wrong direction, and would have had a head-on if not for the fact that she was going pretty slow. She said she didn't even realize what she was doing despite my protestations (i.e. what the f*ck are you doing?) when she started turning.

Now let's take expressway driving. In the US this is excruciatingly boring by any measure, in large part because speed limits haven't risen to keep pace with automotive technology. Today's cars are half asleep until you're going at least 80 mph. Trying to drive at today's common 55 mph to 65 mph limits, or even 5 to 10 mph over, is a recipe for disaster. The task just isn't involved enough to keep you interested. I remember a big reason the 55 mph limit didn't save the number of lives claimed was that the number of drivers falling asleep and ending up in ditches rose dramatically. With such low speed limits doing something else might actually make you a safer driver, provided your primary focus remains on the road. The problem with this approach is that it carries over to situations where distractions aren't safe. You'll be talking on the phone when you're on the expressway, and then continue the conversation or call another person once you're back in urban traffic. Most drivers just lack the judgment to know when distractions are OK and when they aren't. I've long said we should raise our speed limits on expressways enough to make the driving task as involved as urban driving. This probably means somewhere in the 80 to 125 mph range, depending upon how congested the road is. Once we do that we should just outlaw as many driver distractions as we constitutionally can, with cell phones and eating while driving being first on the list.

Ideally since driver distractions are becoming more and more prevalent and the government shows no backbone to either make driving more challenging or just outlaw the distractions we should be moving in the direction of automating driving. That would save some 50,000 lives a year plus free drivers to do something else on the trip.

 

[jtr1962]

I thought this essay on mindset by locomotive engineer Al Krug (also look at the rest of his very excellent site) is relevant to this discussion. Basically, getting into any mindset and doing things by force of habit can lead to disaster. Same with cell phone use, running red lights, etc. Often people will start to think that because they've done it many times with no consequences its OK to keep doing it. Very wrong thinking which sooner or later will get you into trouble.

 

[CougTek]

So, drivers should be isolated from distractions? Fine. Eliminate all passenger seats as passengers are a distraction. Eliminate radios. Eliminate roll-down windows as the extra auditory information is a distraction. Eliminate cup holders. Eliminate roadside advertising. Erect tall, opaque barriers on both sides of every road. Don't allow pedestrian & non-motorized traffic. While we're at it, make every car the same color, size, and shape; we wouldn't want to be distracted by that snazzy convertible.

That's not what I meant. I'm just saying that driving responsibly should, in itself, provide well enough stimuli that your brain shouldn't have "free cycles" for other tasks that require a moderate to high level of concentration.

When I drive with passengers, they always receive the advice to speak or distract me the least possible and that if they do, it's at their own risk. But often, my passengers are in the trunk and they are dead silent ;-)

 

[jtr1962]

The real problem is that the majority of people no longer drive in what we were taught was a safe manner.
- How many people keep a 2+ second distance between themselves and the vehicle in front of them? If you do that around here you'll get run over.
- I think people stopped reliably using turn signals in the early 80s. Maybe earlier; I don't know as I didn't get my license until 1983.
- Few drive with their hands at "10 and 2" or even use two hands at all while driving.
- Who actually doesn't block driveways & side roads when traffic backs up (at a light or in general)?
- Why do you see more SUVs off the road than cars when it's snowing?

And do you know the reasons for this trend? Your observation is dead on. It started in the late 70s and early 80s, and it's gotten steadily worse. Not surprisingly, it coincides exactly with the time the 55 mph national speed limit, arguably the dumbest thing Congress ever did, was in effect. Up until that time, limits were set based on percentiles. The 85th percentile was commonly used for urban roads, the 90th percentile for two-lane highways, and the 95th percentile for expressways. Limits were set based on percentiles after measuring the speed of traffic under free flowing conditions. The net result was that the vast majority of drivers were in compliance with the limit at speeds they felt comfortable driving at.

The 55 mph changed all that. Enter the era of legislated speed limits which still exists today. Eventually, we abandoned the idea of a national speed limit but many states still have maximum state speed limits. Unfortunately, these limits are still at 1950s levels despite the improvements in cars and roads since then. As a result, many people rightly feel perfectly safe and comfortable breaking speed limits by a wide margin. With today's roads and cars 80, 90, even 100 mph is a perfectly safe and reasonable speed. However, limits are no longer set at the 95th percentile but rather the legislated limits are closer to the 5th or 10th percentiles. Legislators are reluctant to change them because speeding tickets have become a large revenue source for many places. Indeed, many small towns wouldn't exist now if not for the speeding ticket revenue.

What has been the effect of low speed limit laws? Many traffic experts agree that because 90 to 95% of drivers routinely break the speed limit in perfect safety the same mindset carries over to other traffic laws. As a result drivers don't signal , don't leave a cushion, ignore red lights and stop signs, and in general are completely clueless. Basically, they feel that since the speed limit makes no sense neither do any of the other laws. The solution is obvious-go back to letting traffic engineers set limits with no absolute maximum national, state, or local limits. If the 95th percentile means a 110 mph speed limit on certain roads, so be it. Let the law makers cringe, let the towns which live on speeding ticket disappear. The sooner we get back to sane, sensible speed limits the sooner it will carry over to other facets of driving.

 

[Buck]

Indeed, under certain circumstances (such as long, empty roads with little else to do for hours at a time bar drive much too fast or zone out with boredom and cruise on sideways into the scenery) a mobile phone conversation will be a considerable aid to concentration, and thus safety.

We don't have any around here. Where I live, regardless of whether you're on a highway, freeway, or avenue, the streets are packed with cars changing lanes without signaling, making turns into side-streets without signaling, passing on the left (it's legal), making hasty right turns on red (it's legal), etc. Around here, distracted drivers are terrible. More often than not, they're on a cell phone. Their speed is erratic, as is their braking. They tend to wander out of lanes, pass without looking, taking a couple seconds at a green light before taking off, moving through an intersection at half the speed limit, causing several others to get stopped prematurely as the light turns red. Half the time they are on hands-free phones, so those don't help. This has nothing to do with theory Tannin, this is reality. I don't know how it is in your city, but around here, distracted drivers are dangerous and quite prevalent. In turn, their poor driving causes those of us who spend almost all of our concentration on driving to see their lack of interest for others safety, thus causing us to drive more defensively.

I don't mean to preclude other distractions, as they can be just as bad. When people talk in my car, I don't normally get the full scope of their conversation, as I'm concentrating on driving. No one eats or drinks in my car (not just because of the distraction, but I don't want to clean up the mess). When I go site seeing, I don't see anything until I stop. Basically, when I drive, I drive. I enjoy driving, and usually drive other people around. But I've never been in an accident (although some close calls have crossed my path), and I don't drive slow, I always try to match the speed limit (down hill my car usually gets faster ).

Now, I haven't driven all over the world, but I've been in a few big cities and Europe, and they all seem to be the same as I described (some worse, New York being one of them). All require my full attention, and that is what I will give.

There have been some very rural, desolate, open spaces where less of my concentration was needed, and I didn't have to worry about roos leaping out to test my skills or the cars crash worthiness. But these are far and few in between my typical driving experiences.

So I can't agree with your theory, because that is not what I encounter when I drive. If there is anyone that can truly provide the necessary attention and concentration to driving while talking on the phone, you are privileged with a special skill. I'll gladly share my traffic space with you.

 

[jtr1962]

...(some worse, New York being one of them).

And that's the understatement of the century. NYC is automotive anarchy, for lack of a better description. Here's a short list of what I see on a daily basis:

1. Running red lights. Not right after they turn red, but just going through a light which was red for 20 seconds already like it isn't even there, and often without even slowing down a bit.

2. Treating "yellow" as "speed up" rather than proceed with caution. So long as the light turns yellow when the driver is within half a block of the intersection the prevailing wisdom is "let's try to beat the red". They usually don't, and end up flying through a light which just turned red at 50 or 60 mph.

3. The red light Grand Prix. Let's pretend we're leaving the pits at Indy every time the light turns green (assuming you even bothered stopping for red in the first place). Weeee, what fun! Now I got to the next light 5 seconds quicker, and I even got to test my brakes!

4. Jockeying for position. Why stop behind the car in front of you when you can go to their left or right and be even with them. No matter if you do it by pulling into a bus stop or empty parking space and then need to merge back into traffic again. Heck, sometimes even a sidewalk will do. Wow, look mommy, I gained a whole car length and almost caused a few accidents!

5. Jockeying for position number two. Why should I be behind this slow poke when I can be in front of him but still driving the exact same speed as I was before? OK, let's use a bus stop or any convenient open space of 50 feet or more to gain one car length. Yippee, this is just like Mario Andretti does it! And look, I get to the next red light a whole 3 seconds faster!

6. The gun it and go. Why look when I'm pulling out of a parking space? The heck with it, I'll just turn the wheel and floor it-they'll have to let me in. Usually works, except when it doesn't. :lol:

7. Should I stop or should I go? I see this a lot-a driver loafing along at 5 mph stopping every 50 feet for who knows what. You don't know what they're going to do next, and apparently they don't either.

8. Let's play run the cyclist off the road. Hey you on the bike. Yeah, you. Look, I'm in a big, black, ugly SUV and the road is mine. I'm going to squeeze those few feet you have now to zero and make you crash just because I can. Or I'll make a sudden right turn in front of you. You're just road kill anyway, you dumb cyclist.

9. Expanding my horizons. Hey, there's a long line of traffic ahead of me and no way out. I can't wait like everybody else, I'm too good for that. Hmm, looks like the sidewalk is open so I'll just drive there. So long as the car fits, anything becomes fair game.

10. The racing bus driver. I really care about my passengers getting there on time so what I'm going to do to get them to their destination faster is just keep accelerating until a passenger requests a stop. I'm not going to let cars, cyclists, red lights, or speed limits keep me from my mission. Hey, this baby really moves once she gets a good run. Look, I'm going 65 mph in a 30 mph zone and loving it!

 

[Fushigi]

And the first bad habit to be treated should be driving with cell phones in operation.

I think it'd be a far greater contribution to vehicular safety if observing a safe distance between vehicles was the first correction. If done, the other points start to correct themselves as people re-gain the reaction time necessary to avoid collisions / pedestrians / etc. The other distractions would be far less likely to lead to accidents if the drivers around the distracted driver had the time and space to react.

Also, the number of people who are actively on their cel while driving is a relatively small percentage of the driving population. Compare that to the number of people who actively tailgate and its no contest. Besides, tailgating was around and 'popular' long before cel phones were common.

 

[Fushigi]

- Few drive with their hands at "10 and 2" or even use two hands at all while driving.

I think 9 and 3 is recommended these days to avoid broken wrists and your hands flying in your face if the airbag should be deployed.

Still... I very rarely put my hands at 9 and 3 because its tiresome and not comfortable.

Could be; I haven't heard. One tip, though, is to not rest your elbow on the door frame if you have side airbags and are at a speed at which they might deploy. If you do rest your arm on the doorframe, you risk breaking your arm should the side airbag deploy. Note that most side airbags only deploy at certain speeds. IIRC my car will deploy them only if it's moving at a speed at or below 35MPH.

I always do 10 & 2 when it's raining or when weather is otherwise not ideal. I will otherwise do 10 & 2 about 40-50% of the time. I do 9 & 3 occasionally but I find 10 & 2 to be more comfortable. The rest of the time I'll use either hand at various places on the wheel.

 

[Stereodude]

I multitask very well and maybe that's why I don't have any issues, but how can you not hold a conversation with a passenger and drive at the same time?

I'm not big on talking on the cell phone while I'm driving. Usually I don't do it unless I'm on the freeway, and then I'll get over to a slower for the duration of the phone call.lane to chat.

As far as the car radio goes I don't see how that is a distraction. I think I'd go insane or fall asleep with out my radio on. I usually have the music on at a moderate level and it kinda soothes my agitation at my fellow drivers.

 

[Mercutio]

When radios were first installed into cars, it was thought they would be distracting because home radio listeners typically looked at their radios while they listened.

Just sayin'

 

[jtr1962]

As far as the car radio goes I don't see how that is a distraction.

It depends upon what you listen to. Some kinds of talk radio can get you really agitated, for example. As for music, a lot of the pop music commonly played on the radio gets you hyper, and it shows in the way people drive. In fact, thinking about it there's really not much I can think of on the radio that couldn't affect you in some way except maybe elevator music. Elevator music is so boring that it defeats the purpose of having the radio on in the first place. Then again, I'm not much of music lover. I find it's yet another way to drown out the sounds of the world. Those sounds can be so much more interesting once you really know how to listen.

To add to this a bit, listening to other cars is very important while driving or cycling and the radio keeps you from doing that. For example, if I hear someone's engine reving down when I'm cycling I anticipate that they're slowing for a turn even if their turn signal is off. 99% of the time they do. I can hear brake squeal before I notice brake lights coming on. The loudness of the squeal tells me how hard they're applying the brake, which is something the brake lights can't. You can hear if tires are about to break lose from a car making an abrupt manuever, and thus avoid it. This list goes on. There are probably 100 more things I listen for but can't articulate because they're second nature now. That's why I would never use a radio if I ever drove. Sight, sound, feel, even smell are all senses which should be used while driving.

 

[timwhit]

...(some worse, New York being one of them).

And that's the understatement of the century. NYC is automotive anarchy, for lack of a better description. Here's a short list of what I see on a daily basis:

1. Running red lights. Not right after they turn red, but just going through a light which was red for 20 seconds already like it isn't even there, and often without even slowing down a bit.

2. Treating "yellow" as "speed up" rather than proceed with caution. So long as the light turns yellow when the driver is within half a block of the intersection the prevailing wisdom is "let's try to beat the red". They usually don't, and end up flying through a light which just turned red at 50 or 60 mph.

3. The red light Grand Prix. Let's pretend we're leaving the pits at Indy every time the light turns green (assuming you even bothered stopping for red in the first place). Weeee, what fun! Now I got to the next light 5 seconds quicker, and I even got to test my brakes!

4. Jockeying for position. Why stop behind the car in front of you when you can go to their left or right and be even with them. No matter if you do it by pulling into a bus stop or empty parking space and then need to merge back into traffic again. Heck, sometimes even a sidewalk will do. Wow, look mommy, I gained a whole car length and almost caused a few accidents!

5. Jockeying for position number two. Why should I be behind this slow poke when I can be in front of him but still driving the exact same speed as I was before? OK, let's use a bus stop or any convenient open space of 50 feet or more to gain one car length. Yippee, this is just like Mario Andretti does it! And look, I get to the next red light a whole 3 seconds faster!

6. The gun it and go. Why look when I'm pulling out of a parking space? The heck with it, I'll just turn the wheel and floor it-they'll have to let me in. Usually works, except when it doesn't. :lol:

7. Should I stop or should I go? I see this a lot-a driver loafing along at 5 mph stopping every 50 feet for who knows what. You don't know what they're going to do next, and apparently they don't either.

8. Let's play run the cyclist off the road. Hey you on the bike. Yeah, you. Look, I'm in a big, black, ugly SUV and the road is mine. I'm going to squeeze those few feet you have now to zero and make you crash just because I can. Or I'll make a sudden right turn in front of you. You're just road kill anyway, you dumb cyclist.

9. Expanding my horizons. Hey, there's a long line of traffic ahead of me and no way out. I can't wait like everybody else, I'm too good for that. Hmm, looks like the sidewalk is open so I'll just drive there. So long as the car fits, anything becomes fair game.

10. The racing bus driver. I really care about my passengers getting there on time so what I'm going to do to get them to their destination faster is just keep accelerating until a passenger requests a stop. I'm not going to let cars, cyclists, red lights, or speed limits keep me from my mission. Hey, this baby really moves once she gets a good run. Look, I'm going 65 mph in a 30 mph zone and loving it!

Chicago is the same way. I especially like the racing bus driver. I was on a racing bus just last week. The driver was literally going 60mph in a 25mph zone and not even stopping to pick up people at stops. I saw one guy waving his briefcase in the air, but the bus driver still didn't stop. Hey, at least I got there sooner.

 

[Buck]

Speaking of dangerous driving. Why is it that most cyclists (and we have a lot of them around here, usually in major packs racing on highways and major streets) don't stop at intersections or follow other rules of the road?

 

[timwhit]

And drive the wrong way down one-ways...wait I do that.

 

[Buck]

And drive the wrong way down one-ways...wait I do that.

I can understand doing that on side streets and byways, you want to see the dummy before he hits you. Sneaking up from behind doesn't give you enough time to react. But I'm talking about groups of 20 or 50. They just crowd the street, traveling far under the speed limit, and they'll only stop at intersections with signal lights (if it is red and they're going straight; right turns are immediated rights regardless of the signal light's color).

Enough ranting, time for more tea.

 

[Stereodude]

Speaking of dangerous driving. Why is it that most cyclists (and we have a lot of them around here, usually in major packs racing on highways and major streets) don't stop at intersections or follow other rules of the road?

Because the average cyclist is a prick. They want the be afforded all the courtesy given a car, but follow none of the same rules.

 

[timwhit]

Don't hold back. Tell it the way it is Stereodude.

 

[Stereodude]

When radios were first installed into cars, it was thought they would be distracting because home radio listeners typically looked at their radios while they listened.

Just sayin'

So, should I be staring at the mesmerizing LCD screen in my dash, or the speakers in the door?

 

[Tannin]

I don't drive in cities. I'm not talking about city driving. That's different - in traffic it's complete concentration all the time ... or else.

(Well. OK, I do visit once in a while. Only when I absolutely can't avoid it. But it's a refined form of psychological torture. Why people voluntarily live in big cities, I have no idea. They are total sh*t holes, mainly populated by ars*holes.) (Present company excepted, of course.)

 

[Buck]

I don't drive in cities. I'm not talking about city driving. That's different - in traffic it's complete concentration all the time ... or else.

I don't live in a big city either. Technically, I live in a suburb, of roughly 76,000 people within an eighteen square mile area, called San Clemente. Right next door is a similarly sized Town, another next to that, etc. We are tightly packed with one (1) freeway with four lanes in each direction. Everything else is side streets with signal lights -- blah. So, we all cram onto this one freeway, whether we know how to drive or not. Plus, inspite of being so densely populated for a suburb, we also have to contend with wild life (e.g. deer and coyotees). <sarcasm> It is so nice to know, that more homes are being built every day in my area, and no new freeways. </sarcasm> :roll:

 

[ddrueding]

I live in Monterey (population ~40k) and do most of my work in Salinas (17 miles away, ~200k) and San Jose (60 miles away, ~1million). This is a lot of freeway driving, on nice roads, with minimal traffic. Driving in a single lane at 75mph with other cars going the same speed (or faster) while talking on the phone does not impair me at all.

While I was driving in China I had more to think about. Bejing was really crazy, with major intersections having no signalling whatsoever. Six lanes either way with no signals or stopsigns. Everyone just begins to cross the intersection and breaks/accelerates/swerves through available openings in the crosstraffic. Sounds scary? It works. Even with pedestrians walking diagonally through the middle and bicycles with live chickens on the back, getting through a heavily used intersection in a midsized car was not difficult. Why? Because everyones attention was on the road. I only saw one accident the whole time (caused by a friend -stupid american- talking to a passenger while driving). In this enviroment even the cab drivers turn off their radio.

The most distracting thing for me while driving is books on tape. I find them highly absorbing and as a consequence only listen to them while driving on empty roads for long periods of time (I-5 and I-10 are good examples; laser straight and empty for 100s of miles at night).

Bottom line: This is a judgement that the driver should be trusted to make. Most drivers are not responsible enough to make this decision, but how can you trust someone to drive if you don't trust them this much? That's a whole other argument.

 

[Tannin]

Bottom line: This is a judgement that the driver should be trusted to make. Most drivers are not responsible enough to make this decision, but how can you trust someone to drive if you don't trust them this much? That's a whole other argument.

And there you have the truth of the matter in a nutshell.

I've covered around 50,000k in the last year or so. Most of that has been on lightly-trafficed roads, where you see, on average, anywhere from one car every five minutes to one car every week or so. Call that better than 50%. Throw in another 40% of my miles where the traffic is fairly light - you need to pay attention to it, but it's still easy driving with very little stress. (I take care to plan my trips so as to avoid peak traffic periods where I can Much more pleasant.) Then have 5% each of city work (which I dislike a great deal) and true off-road miles (where you also need to pay attention, unless you like breaking your car, getting bogged, or spiking tyres).

Out here, the great enemy is loss of concentration. You are driving for many hours at a stretch, and you do all manner of things to (a) pass the time, and (b) keep yourself alert enough to be ready for other cars (the one you don't see is the one that gets you, and when there is only one car every half hour or so, you and he can both be a meanace to each other unless you stay on the ball) and all the various passing hazards (potholes, bad corners, agricultural machinery, stray cattle, sheep, roos, wombats, and of course birds - I try never to hit a bird, whch in turn means knowing that there is nothing in my mirror so I can hit the anchors hard anytime I need to).

You have to stay on the ball for hour after hour, and there are a number of things that help a lot.

1: Eat. Buy a burger, pack some nuts, fruit. Nibble quietly away as you go. This occupies your surface mind just enough that your sub-surface mnd stays on the road, and doesn't go out to lunch a million miles away.
2: Drink. I have a large insulated mug that sits beside me and the tea stays hot in it for 40 or 50 minutes. There is a thermos in the back, and a petrol-fueled cooker that I can set up in 20 seconds. When the thermos goes empty, it's time to stop and boil the billy, take a break, stretch your legs. The tiny extra stimulus of finding "nothing is happening on the road for the next few seconds" moments to sip your tea in helps too.
3: Smoke. Fill the pipe, light it, puff quietly away, relaxed and yet alert. There goes another half-hour and another 50 kilometres. Only 650 more to go!
4: Listen to the radio. If, that is, there is anything worth listening to on. I like cricket and football games, most any kind of sport really, quality talk radio (Radio National can be great), music only if it is interesting and suits the place I'm in. (If I'm truly outback, of course, there is no radio, so it's play CDs or switch the thing off.)
5: Talk on the phone. I don't actually get to do this, because I'm out of mobile phone range most of the time. But it would be nice if I could. But in reality, I hardly ever use my mobile phone, on the road or anywhere else.
6: Watch for wildlife. You have to do this anyway, so it's lucky that I love to do it. Mostly it's just magpies, ravens, kestrels, rabbits, foxes and roos, but every now and again you see something special. (I've had some great shots over the years with roadside birds. Also lizards, snakes, and various other things.)
7: Organise stuff. Check that you have the appropriate camera batteries in the charger, put a fresh pair in the GPS, and so on. Doing this without forgetting that you are on the road and travelling at speed can while away another ten minutes easily.
8: Above all, watch the landscape and try to understand why this patch is mulga, while five minutes ago all you could see was mallee, and down at the bottom of the hill it is all saltbush. Is it rainfall on this side of the hill? Clay instead of sand? Salinity? And so on .... This is endlessly fascinating, and you slowly get better at it as you slowly learn to understand nature better.

 

[sechs]

Doug brings up a great point.

Why *are* we actually trusting all of these people to drive in a reasonable manner? They're certainly not taking that trust seriously; most people feel that the ability to drive is a right, not a privilege.

 

[ddrueding]

And we quickly reach the bottom of all the world's problems: people as a whole (and Americans inparticular) are too stupid, lazy, and inconsiderate to survive long-term.

 

[e_dawg]

(off topic interjection, but in response to the original post and related to the above post by virtue of the poster)

Does a hand job while driving count as enough stimulus or too much while driving?

I know, I know... what kind of a question is that?

The only thing I have to say is "I really blew it this time!"

LOL...

PUI (Ironstone Merlot + Rosemount Estates Shiraz... yumm...)

 

[Tannin]

Actually, head jobs work rather well.

.... er .... that was a long time ago ...

These days I'd say something like "Stop that and pay attention, you fool - I think that was a White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike in that tree back there, do you think we should stop and check it out?

 

[Fushigi]

Oh, the mammaries that brings back. :rotfl:

That was a long time ago for me as well. But unlike Tannin I don't think I'd turn one down as long as the road & traffic conditions were good. I can handle certain distrations.

 

[Tannin]

It all depends on the circumstances, Fushigi. In reality, no-one in their right mind would turn down one of those, White-bellied Cucko-shrike or no White-bellied Cucko-shrike.

(A Grey Falcon, on the other hand, would be an entirely different matter.)

 

[ddrueding]

Hey, I consider myself a responsible driver. Do your best to pull over quickly yet gently enough for her not to notice. That way you are in no danger and when she's done you can head into the back seat