Oct 28, 2008

Warning to multitasking drivers

A warning to multitasking drivers was issued by Etmunds last year but it is even more appropriate now.

Mark Stevens is a multitasking maniac. A couple of months ago, the White Plains, New York, marketing consultant was working his cell phone with one hand and his Blackberry with the other while trying to steer his Mercedes SL500 with his wrists and knees — when he plowed it into a rental vehicle in an Enterprise parking lot.

That followed his fourth ticket in four years for talking on his cell phone while driving.

“If you are a determined multitasker, it's an addiction — and you can't stop it,” said the 59-year-old Stevens.



More than 80 percent of drivers surveyed identified themselves as multitaskers. Sixty-eight percent eat while driving; texting or instant-messaging while driving, or fixing hair, is practiced by 19 percent of drivers; 14 percent comfort or discipline children while behind the wheel; and 8 percent drive with a pet in their laps.

The troubling thing about multitasking is that it is more prevalent in parts of the country were the traffic is most contested.

When drivers from small-town U.S.A. are exposed to the 405 freeway near LAX they would be shocked at what some people do behind the wheel.

When they see a cute young thing with a bare foot propped on the steering wheel polishing her toenails it is a reminder they are not on Route 212 in South Dakota!

Link to the Etmunds story here.