In Car Entertainment

I think driving an automobile these days is an adventure. It's not just turning the ignition on and coasting to wherever the destination is. Today, cars and drivers are using their vehicles for entertainment. But then, in China recently, a 60 mile traffic jam lasted 11 days. Hmmm Those clogged roads might make watching DVD's in the car logical...uh, for the passengers, not the drivers.

We drive more than ever and have started to see our cars as entertainment centers. You know, as in the driver who chats on a cell phone, puts on make-up, listens to the radio (and to the mother-in-law jabbering away in the back seat) and munches on his fast food purchase he acquired through the drive through window of that fast food restaurant he used as a pit stop on his journey to wherever.

Take a look at the drivers of automobiles on roads today and you will see many operating their cars with little attention to their driving. I think the smiling giggling phone operating driver is now the rule rather than the exception. Need an example? An Ohio woman now faces a charge of "driving with inappropriate alertness" after she was pulled over for having illegal tinted windows. Police discovered her with a sex toy in her lap. Colondra Hamilton, 36, was wearing unzipped pants and watching a sex video on a computer her passenger was holding. Haha Thank God I don't drive in Ohio.

What is one to do about the crazies driving while distracted. Forget about riding on a horse to ensure safety instead. Police in Utah, a state right next to my own state of Oregon, say a woman there was riding her horse along a road when she was struck by a distracted driver. Here are some facts about distracted drivers that I obtained from the Internet.

Research on distracted driving reveals some surprising facts:

• 20 percent of injury crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving. (NHTSA).
• Of those killed in distracted-driving-related crashed, 995 involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction (18% of fatalities in distraction related crashes). (NHTSA)
• In 2009, 5,474 people were killed in U.S. roadways and an estimated additional 448,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes that were reported to have involved distracted driving. (FARS and GES)
• The age group with the greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the under-20 age group – 16 percent of all drivers younger than 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported to have been distracted while driving. (NHTSA)
• Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
• Using a cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah

Uh, maybe I should just leave my car in the garage today and stay home.