It’s funny because in the rest of my life I can’t do just one thing at a time. If I’m not multitasking with two things it’s three, but when driving I drive and that’s it. Anything that I need to do that’s not driving will either wait for the next traffic light or I’ll pull over.
I do occasionally talk on the hands free but I don’t have conversations, I get or deliver information and end the call.
I never eat, I never use a cell phone, and if I am close to needing to change CDs I’ll get the cases ready when I’m stopped at a light so that when I do it I don’t need to fumble. My Prius has a lot of controls on the steering wheel, which helps a lot also.
I have no issues doing things while driving. I’d tend to drive slower and avoid changing lanes and such. Driving in MA though, I feel doing things other then driving takes away my competitive edge so avoid doing them when possible.
For me pretty much never. I might skip a song on the old i-pod without looking, but that’s it. I must say that I drive mostly in the western part of the Netherlands or on the German Autobahn, so attention is a must. Last year when I was driving in Canada and the north east of the US, I could have probably slept while driving.
The only places that seemed to require attention were Boston and the ring around Manhattan. Needless to say I got quite irritated with the nail pollishing, coffee drinking, texting, SUV drivers in the rural areas.
I often like to make this point about multitasking, too - the human brain focuses on one thing at a time. No one “multitasks”* - what we do is switch our attention from task to another very quickly (called "switchtasking). I don’t know about the rest of youse, but when I try to do two things at once, it seems to wear me out more than doing things sequentially.
*There are things we can do together, like listening to music and reading, or watching tv while exercising. When both tasks demand your attention, though, you end up switching focus.
For normal driving (eg not fast-moving, heavy traffic or winding roads or adverse conditions etc), I feel that if I can safely take my eyes off the road for a quarter second to check a mirror or look at a passenger or look at the sunset, then I can safely take my eyes off the road for a quarter second to type a single letter of a text. Sure, getting through a text might take awhile, but Japan has really slow drivers anyway.
I’ve been rear-ended twice in the past month by multitasking drivers (once in a DRIVE-THROUGH!) so I would definitely prefer no one did it.
I had lasik surgery to get distance vision (I was severely nearsighted), and willingly sacrificed my up-close, so the ability to see anything in print is crap without reading glasses.
Not only that, but I’m light-sensitive to the nth power, so I’m not about to try to switch from sun to reading glasses **and **attempt to text or even try to call someone all while tooling down the road. My iphone is good, but not THAT good.
Back when my state trooper BIL worked the road full-time (he’s now an honest-to-god CSI), he had idiot driver stories to tell that would curl your hair.
To wit: the woman applying mascara in the rearview while weaving in and out of traffic. The man watching tv on his dash during the height of afternoon rush hour. The woman sewing on her shirt in same. The man ‘driving’ down the road more than half-way in his backseat looking for something.
There are more, but you get the idea. And, oh yes, he ticketed them. 
I multitask but I center myself around safe driving. For example I set my GPS before I roll so I don’t have to glance at maps. I will talk on a cell phone but only using a handsfree device. I listen to 4 police / fire scanners in the background, years of training mean I tune them out to a low drone until my ear picks up something interesting sounding, then I turn it up. I can’t drive & take notes so I have a recorder attached to the scanner so all I have to do is hit record and I will get the important info I need on tape to review later.
If work has to send me an important email or text I use a 3 word rule: read three words, look up & scan the roadway and mirrors, read 3 more words. That I do in a pinch, most often I just call & talk on the phone (or 2-way radio) so I can keep my eyes on the road. If I have to acknowledge a message on the phone I send, at most, “ok” in reply.
I had a few accidents earlier in my career, none since I instituted a consistent plan to reduce visual distractions.
All in all it works for me. The proof is in the pudding; no accidents, no tickets.
I’m terrible about it. Chronic multi-tasker. And at work, I have a laptop that I actually have to use while I’m driving mounted to my dash. I’ve had some special training in distracted driving, but have personally helped clean up an accident or two caused by distracted drivers, so while I know it isn’t safe… I still do it.
When my son or other people are in the car, I am far less likely to distract myself.
You are doing a good job…of fooling yourself.
The fact you have had no accidents (apart from the ones you have had) means nothing. The level of distractions around you mean you are a higher risk to yourself and others. You could take steps to reduce those distraction but don’t.
Not sensible. The email and text reading while driving is ridiculous.
I chose “Almost Never”. I find that doing two things at once tends to end up with two poorly done tasks. I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. I’m frequently pulling a trailer, and sometimes pulling two at once behind my truck, and this seems to max out my concentration. My only distraction is listening to books on tape. I usually stop to answer the phone.
people often gauge their level of distraction in terms of keeping the car on the road and moving in well behaved predictable traffic.
you need to accommodate the other driver being distracted; putting on makeup, sewing, picking up baby’s pacifier, texting, running a spreadsheet before their next sales stop, looking for better tunes, cleaning spilled mustard off your business clothes. the risks are multiplicative.
even nondistracted drivers don’t have time to react to avoid accident often.
with people feeling time crunched and more small electronic devices it will only get worse.
Only if ‘next song’ or pushing the CD > Radio button counts. I enjoy driving too much.