Kindling While Driving

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Have you ever been at an accident, where someone will say "He came out of nowhere, there was nothing I could do"? What that means is their mind was occupied with something else, so their victim's presence just didn't register until it was too late.

Several times. It has been my experience that the people involved come in two sorts: the ones who can't process the data they're getting (the stereotypical idiots in big cities) and the ones who are getting only routine data, so that their brains are just humming and not paying adequate attention to anything. Or, in short, the people who are overwhelmed and the people who are bored.

Dealing with hazards is not luck; it's training and experience. Of course you don't pay attention to a book -- or passenger, radio, or anything else -- while you are doing so. My point is that it's easier to switch your focus from, let's say, singing along with the radio, to dealing with a situation on the road, than it is to wake up your brain from the somnolent state that it gets into if you are driving with no external stimulation. Roads are -- roads are built to be -- boring. If the only thing you have to see is the road, you will be bored. Switching an alert mind from radio to road takes less time, and is more effective, than activating a non-alert mind.

If humans were other than they are, maybe the ideal of a driver isolated from all inputs except an endless highway might work. But humans aren't that way, and they don't work that way. In city traffic, or on a highway near a city, you have your stimulation from other drivers (read: idiots). But if that isn't present, there has to be some stimulation for the brain, or it will become even more bored, and react even more slowly, than if it was listening to the radio, or an audiobook, or a passenger.

Add to this the fact that many cars are isolated from the road (drive-by-wire models being particular offenders), the sound and vibration damping that seals the driver in a bubble, the "sound walls" that have gone from suppressing sound for people who should have known there was a highway there to "protecting" empty fields and forests, apparently in the idea that drivers with no trees to "distract" them will somehow become safer than if they weren't just humming ... stimulation is both necessary and missing.

Again, I'm not arguing in favor of taking your hands off the wheel, at least not more than necessary to prevent cramping (one at a time, in that case). I'm not arguing that people in downtown Boston should have anything to distract them from the idiots, who are more than enough stimulation. I'm certainly not suggesting that someone should take their eyes off the road for a text message or, God help us all, a Kindle. But in my personal experience, which I have more of than the average person, just as I have less experience in other fields, I have found that having some source of external stimulus enhances safety by preventing the otherwise inevitable "zoning out" which occurs in long or familiar routes.

In short: boredom is not conducive to alertness, and when one's only source of input is an endless white line, it is inevitable.

[mrscoach]

Worldwalker, I agree about roads being boring and lulling the brain into a state of somnolence. Living in western Texas I have driven many miles of open road, with nothing but a few mesquite trees, oil wells, and cattle for a hundred miles at a stretch. Some of these places are so far in the boondocks that you can't get any radio signal. It is very easy to start falling asleep, or just lose track of where you are because your brain tunes out.

I would much rather have someone listening to an audio book or the radio than going into a road trance.

And sometimes things just do "come out from nowhere". I was once hit by a deer (it hit me, not the other way around) that darted in front of another car and hit me in the side. I was busy watching the car I was passing, watching the car in the left lane coming at me (there were two lanes on my side and one on the other, I never crossed the yellow) and making the sure the truck behind me didn't run over me. There was ONE little scrub oak that it must have been behind. If I had been in a road trance it would have scared me even more and I might have swerved, causing a three or four car accident.

[doreenjoy]

I think the video was staged. I'm cynical that way.

I've had friends (all under the age of 30) yell at me for NOT checking my phone while driving. I had to explain to them that when I was driving, I wasn't going to pick up the phone and see who was texting me. They can wait until I arrive. I sound like an old geezer. One of them had the nerve to tell me it was "rude" not to answer a cell phone. WTF?

[Worldwalker]

I'm reminded of the person who refused to have a phone, saying "Why would I want a bell in my house that anyone in the world can ring?"

Anyone who thinks that not answering their phone calls in an instant is "rude" has an undeservedly high idea of their own importance.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I think the video was staged. I'm cynical that way.

I've had friends (all under the age of 30) yell at me for NOT checking my phone while driving. I had to explain to them that when I was driving, I wasn't going to pick up the phone and see who was texting me. They can wait until I arrive. I sound like an old geezer. One of them had the nerve to tell me it was "rude" not to answer a cell phone. WTF?

Stupid kids. I don't even always know where my cell phone is. OMG!

Even older folks are cellphone addicts. I mean, I run a prepaid cellphone and run on minimal minutes (maybe $10-$20 a month). I've had XBL buddies text me to play or something and they are always saying "you never have your phone". They are amazed that I don't have my cellphone on me. On the weekend I probably don't even know where it is (probably with my other stuff...like my wallet, keys, etc...downstairs until I head to work at the end of the weekend).

I mean, I'm at home with my family and my kids. Why would I need my cellphone on me? If I'm at home, I'm either doing something I want to do (most likely) or in charge of my kids. And I have a VOIP phone that is absolutely free (Ooma) if I REALLY need to be reached. Most of the texts / phone calls people make are REALLY unnecessary...somehow, cell phones have gotten people to spend tons of money on a monthly basis to text pointless messages (i.e. LOL!) or talk endlessly on them. I guess I simply don't love people so much that I must be talking / communicating all of the time.

The guy with the Kindle / book / cellphone isn't that unusual. Drive on the freeway frequently and you see that kind of stuff all of the time. Not normally all 3 at once, but one or the other.

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

... if you have a kindle then you'd just turn on the TTS and listen rather than read....

... and that is my answer. I Kindle all the time while I drive and workout. I use TTS. Of course that means that I only buy books that enable TTS. Even if its 'free' if it won't allow me to TTS I will delete it rather than bother with it.

[Iridal]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Dealing with hazards is not luck; it's training and experience.

I couldn't agree with you more ! Every driver should take a course about hazard perception and reaction, so they learn to look at the solution instead of the problem when something happens on the road. And so they learn the techniques that will allow them they stay in control of their car when they have to perform a sudden manoeuvre whilst driving.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

But in my personal experience, which I have more of than the average person, just as I have less experience in other fields, I have found that having some source of external stimulus enhances safety by preventing the otherwise inevitable "zoning out" which occurs in long or familiar routes.

In short: boredom is not conducive to alertness, and when one's only source of input is an endless white line, it is inevitable.

This is called Driving Without Awareness. The research about DWA is quite extensive. Some people have even described it in this thread: it's driving on autopilot, where all of the sudden you "wake up" and can't remember how you got there. It's something professional drivers have to deal with every day, especially when driving on the highway. If listening to an audiobook prevents zoning out, then that's what that driver should do !

In the end it's all about experience. A young and inexperienced driver should turn off the radio when he's driving, because the driving task itself still takes up so much of his concentration. Performing (simple) secondary tasks (like listening to the radio, adjusting the air conditioning, talking to a passenger, ...) when you just got your license is a recipe for disaster. But a more experienced driver is capable of driving whilst listening to the radio, and still react properly to risky situations when they occur.

But absolutely no-one is able to read a book and drive at the same time !

[lene1949]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I think the video was staged. I'm cynical that way.

I've had friends (all under the age of 30) yell at me for NOT checking my phone while driving. I had to explain to them that when I was driving, I wasn't going to pick up the phone and see who was texting me. They can wait until I arrive. I sound like an old geezer. One of them had the nerve to tell me it was "rude" not to answer a cell phone. WTF?

I think so, too... Who would be stupid enough to drive beside someone who's reading??

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

If humans were other than they are, maybe the ideal of a driver isolated from all inputs except an endless highway might work. But humans aren't that way, and they don't work that way. In city traffic, or on a highway near a city, you have your stimulation from other drivers (read: idiots). But if that isn't present, there has to be some stimulation for the brain, or it will become even more bored, and react even more slowly, than if it was listening to the radio, or an audiobook, or a passenger.


In short: boredom is not conducive to alertness, and when one's only source of input is an endless white line, it is inevitable.

I just realised you're American (or similar). We don't have open roads here, we have extremely crouded ones, with the vast majority of drivers not even looking out of the front window never mind anything else. You need to be alert all the time, because they do unpredictable things, and you are always surrounded by them.

With fewer vehicles to worry about you could probably do it, but you would still need to switch your mind to hazard mode sometimes, and that is when you would lose your place in the story. Which was my point, really -- that you can't do both things at the same time.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

But in my personal experience, which I have more of than the average person, just as I have less experience in other fields, I have found that having some source of external stimulus enhances safety by preventing the otherwise inevitable "zoning out" which occurs in long or familiar routes.

AFAIK there is zero evidence that a radio or audio book will distract a driver anywhere near enough to cause any sort of hazard. I'm not even sure why anyone would criticize that behavior, though I do concur that (if it matters) your overall listening comprehension will be slightly lower when driving than if you were sitting at home and doing nothing but listening to the audio book.

However, I really have no doubt that reading a book, talking on a cell phone, or texting while driving are far too distracting to be safe. Until Google gets its self-driving car system out of beta, there is no excuse for that driver to be reading and talking on the cell phone while driving. People are also terrible judges of their own abilities, and faith in their ability to multitask is misplaced.

As such, I really have no problem "telling people what to do" while driving, if and when their actions make the road unsafe.

[Worldwalker]

That does make a significant difference. I'm intellectually aware that much of the world has little if anything but the equivalent of city driving, but I don't internalize it because so much of my driving is on open roads. If I'm going into, say, Boston (for non-Americans, notorious for having drivers both insane and incompetent) I wouldn't even have the radio on -- a place like that, you don't have to worry about external stimuli, they're all around you and trying to kill you (actually, most of the time, I'd take the metro). But you go 20 miles from Boston and you're on a lightly-populated limited-access highway, and especially if you're doing it at night, "droning mode" can easily set in. And that's in one of the most populated places in the country. If you're in, say, Texas at night, you can go 20 minutes without even seeing another set of headlights.

Still, there is no place, and no time, in which it's appropriate to read a freaking Kindle.

[RichyRich]

I like listening to old radio shows while driving. Since they were created before TV existed, they had to allow you to mentally visualize what was going on by being very descriptive about the environment and with what was happening. Plus there are plenty of shows that are free to download. Currently, my two favorite shows are "The Shadow" and "The George Burns and Gracie Allen show".

[TallMomof2]

I've seen plenty of people texting, using netbooks/laptops, reading the newspaper, and applying makeup while driving but never reading off a Kindle or other reading device. Of course my favorite was pulling up beside a commuter van with video screens and the kids asking why the man and woman were wrestling naked in the movie. At least the driver wasn't watching porn!

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by RichyRich

I like listening to old radio shows while driving. Since they were created before TV existed, they had to allow you to mentally visualize what was going on by being very descriptive about the environment and with what was happening. Plus there are plenty of shows that are free to download. Currently, my two favorite shows are "The Shadow" and "The George Burns and Gracie Allen show".

Boston Blackie, Sherlock Holmes, and Johnny Dollar here. It's sad that so many were lost and never even recorded.

[mrscoach]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

If you're in, say, Texas at night, you can go 20 minutes without even seeing another set of headlights.

Still, there is no place, and no time, in which it's appropriate to read a freaking Kindle.

Go 20 minutes without seeing headlights? Where I lived 6 months ago I could drive an hour sometimes on the way home from shopping and not see headlights! Deer, yes, headlights, no.

I agree with the sentiment that no one should EVER read, whether a book, Kindle, phone, etc. while driving.