My GF is a multitasker. I have on innumerable occasions witnessed her: eating, putting her hair up, talking on her cell phone, changing CDs, messing with her iPod, inputting something on the GPS, applying lip balm, applying lotion, scrounging around in her bag for something, or some other activity, sometimes all at once, all while driving her manual transmission in traffic. I’m only partly exaggerating.
She drives slow and is mostly careful so I don’t worry about it too much, but there has been a close call here and there and I tell her “it only takes one.” When riding with her I always end up saying to her at least once during the trip, “Would you mind either [doing whatever it is she’s doing] or driving? Preferably driving?” She counters with, “You drive crazy fast!” Which is true. I do. On the highway. But when I drive, I’m focused on driving and driving alone.
If I’m doing some technical driving I’ll focus on driving. This weekend I was trying to set a new lateral g force recond in my car and I wasn’t even talking to my girlfriend while doing it. If I’m driving down a straight, flat road with no cars in site I’m normally at least checking out the scenery or doing something else. Most of my driving is the straight, flat, alone and boring variety.
Heck no and I’m tired of either almost getting run into by those preoccupied drivers that are, or having them slow everyone down as they crawl along at a fraction of the posted speed limit. It’s inconsiderate and dangerous and I refuse to participate. Seriously, I can’t imagine putting one’s self in an environment where accidents can easily occur and not paying attention to the road.
Unfortunately, I do multitask when I drive, almost once a day. I try not to talk on my cell phone while driving, but I do munch on some nuts and dried fruit on my way to work in the morning. Usually I’m too busy for breakfast before I leave and too hungry to wait until I get to work.
Other than that and drinking out of a travel cup, I don’t multitask while driving.
I don’t eat while driving because I don’t want to get food all over myself. I don’t mess with my iPod or anything because I don’t use my iPod in the car. I will answer the phone or read a text if I can but I rarely receive either while driving, and/or will ignore them if needed.
Now that I’ve quit smoking, I guess I don’t do anything in the car except drive! But I did vote for the second option, because of the phone thing.
I said very rarely. I’m pretty much the type to stay on one radio station, and I don’t talk on the phone while the car is moving. I do get a lot done at stop lights and in stop and go traffic, so if you count those then it’s fairly often. I live in Northern Virginia, where there is plenty of time to accomplish whatever you want while the car is stopped (in traffic).
I’m sure I do a lot more multitasking than many Dopers would approve of. I live inside the Beltway in the DC region, which means that traffic is frequently heavy and red lights are many. If I pull up to a light that I know will be red for a minute and twenty seconds, I feel pretty comfortable fetching whatever the kids dropped on the floor, putting on some chapstick, seeing what that last text was, or fixing my ponytail. I don’t generally do those things while the car is in motion, though. After all, I’ll be at the next red light in 30 seconds.
I’ll make phone calls about three times a week from my car, on my home from work. I use a hands-free wired setup, it doesn’t feel any different from talking to a passenger in the car.
I’ll sometimes eat in the car too, but never while on the phone too.
Usually the most I’ll do is switch my iPod to another song; now that the car has a new stereo that lets me hook it into the stereo, I just have to push one button on the stereo if I want a new song. Rarely I’ll snack on something like a granola bar. I’m too paranoid to talk on the phone or do similar things.
Nothing wrong with that at all. That’s the time to do it. It’s the swerving left lane texters that don’t keep up with the traffic that I despise. They’re the ones there’s no place for on the road.
I really try not to; the one thing I do is change cds; I have the cd ready to go, and I do try to do that at the lights, but you’ve reminded me to be more vigilant about that.
I do occasionally. If I’m driving from A to B I don’t have much issue talking on the phone, eating (rarely) or changing CDs.
I also drive cars for work, usually in the form of performance evaluation. Of course, in these cases I’m focused only on driving.
I’m curious what this means? Technical driving? Do you race? Do you have special instrumentation to record lateral acceleration?
The studies all indicate that handheld or handsfree doesn’t make any difference in the distractedness level of the driver using the cellphone. It is truly frustrating that all the distracted driving laws I’ve heard of have chosen to ignore this little bit of reality, giving drivers a false impression of how safe what they are doing is.
I don’t do things that take my eyes off the road. I do sometimes drink some water while driving, and eat a breakfast sandwich on my way to work (which I strategically unwrap while stopped so I don’t need to pay attention to it later). I don’t answer my phone or text while driving. I don’t wear makeup. I only program my GPS while parked. I don’t listen to music during my commute. If I do make a longer trip, I put in a cd before I hit the road. And the longest trip I ever make these days is about an hour 15, long enough that I don’t worry about changing cds.
I would say I’m not a multitasker, unless you count eating facilitated so as not to take my concentration off driving.
I am also learning to despise the stop light texters who aren’t paying attention to the light. Last Friday we came up behind a guy who was sitting doing nothing at a green light. We honked to get him going, and he started driving just in time for him to make it through the light, and it turned red right in our faces. ARRRRRGGGHHHHHH!