Not to mention the fact that sometimes, there's actually too much happening on the road for the brain to process and react correctly.
Driving is too simple, that is the whole problem. I am working at a university department for traffic psychology and according to a recent study, only 4% of all drivers did not admit to have been doing something distracting the last time they drove a car. So 96% of all drivers do something distracting and know that they were doing so and admit it. (Normally, people do not really admit freely to do things with negative connotation.)
And why are they doing all this stuff? Because driving is so overlearned that you are pretty sure that you can do other stuff at the same time. Look at little kids, for them it is totally difficult to balance a glass of milk without spilling it when they climb a stair. Most adults could do this while being drunk and talking to someone downstairs.
I continue using my phone while driving for the same reason: I know that nothing happened until now. Quite contrary, I have been avoiding accidents that other people tried to inflict on my car while I was using my phone for more than 10 times now. This is poor man's statistics, I know...
I'll admit to talking on the phone occasionally while driving, but I'm almost always using a Bluetooth over-the-ear headset to do so. Mainly because I drive a car with a manual transmission, so I need both hands free to steer and shift gears. The few times I've forgotten my headset and had to use the phone while driving were definitely unnerving to me.
Headset Binder
Well, I guess that's not entirely true. I own some little pay as you go phone in case I go on a long trip somewhere on the bike, but that's as far as it goes for me.
IG: And indeed talking to your passengers is a distraction. Or, to avoid negative connotations, lets use "perturbation" in the sense Maturana uses it. If this perturbation takes in too much of your limited rescources, it becomes dangerous. Think about discussing political issues, rant about stupid coworkers, explaining to your wife why you are taking this street, not the one she suggested...
Even listening to the radio can be perturbating enough.
Show the table on page 89 to someone who is capable to dig through psychological statistics and understands german. Or try to translate the text on page 90, which states
Ein weiteres Ergebnis der Metaanalyse zeigt, dass keine Unterschiede
bezüglich des Telefontyps (Mobiltelefon vs. Freisprechanlage) gefunden werden konnten.
Das impliziert, dass der Großteil der Ablenkung durch Telefonieren am Steuer durch das
Gespräch selbst und weniger durch die manuelle Handhabe des Geräts zustande kommt.
Weiterhin zeigen sich größere Einbußen auf die Reaktionszeit, wenn der Fahrer sich normal
unterhält, im Vergleich zu einer verbalen Informationsverarbeitungsaufgabe. Die Autoren
erklären sich diesen Befund mit einer unterschiedlichen Involviertheit in das Gespräch. Bei
natürlichen Gesprächen könnte es vorkommen, dass diese emotional beanspruchender sind
und so einen größeren Effekt auf das Fahrverhalten ausüben [...]
Translation (by myself):
Another result of the meta analysis shows that no differences with regard to the type of telephone (mobile or handsfree) could be found. This implies that the main part of distraction caused by using telephones while driving happens because of the chat itself and less by the manual use of the device. Furthermore penalties on the reactiontime show up when the driver is conversing normally, compared to a verbal information computation task (Translators note: For example "Name four chracters from the Mickey Mouse universe"). The authors explain this outcome with a distinct involvement during a conversation. With natural conversation it could happen that they are more emotionally demandin and thus have a bigger effect on the driving behaviour.
There are also some english articles by the author, listed in the beginning of this doctors thesis.
PS: I helped realizing the physical test design used in the paper, it involved some clever Y-plugs in order to record the voices of two people simultaniously wearing headsets (with stereo mics) to talk to each other while being in two different rooms. And they didn't even mention my name in the paper :(
Back then, mobile phones were quite rare, of course.
Unfortunately for activist legislators, there's no way they can outlaw having a conversation with your passengers. So instead they make themselves appear useful by outlawing handheld phones.
...while it is still legal to hold burning sticks of dried plant leaves in your hand and even eventually intoxicating your lungs with the fumes...
Seriously, if my mobile falls down, I care little, if a burning cigarette falls into my lap = instant panic. Even if it isn't the lap, it still is something alarming the stone-age parts of your brain enough to go all crazy. Also: What about the children?! Won't somebody please think of the children!?
the children, yes.
I was doored because of the crying child on the back seat.
I guess car driving is more boring in general than riding on two weels; regardless whether with or without an engine.
Many of the dangers of motorcycles are common with bikes. Very few of them derive from the motorcycles ability to accellerate faster.
when I was in college, I had a friend who had a 50cc scooter (i.e. looked like a scooter, not a moped). I don't know quite how fast it could go, but he avoided taking it on highways as much as possible. He lived in Tel Aviv, and if he left the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, he borrowed a car or took a bus.
Saved him a fortune, b/c he worked and studied like 5-10 miles from home, and his GF (me) lived another 5 miles in a different direction. In Tel Aviv, you get maybe 10 days of bad rains - those days, he'd take a bus. The problem is that even though there's tons of public transit in Tel Aviv, but there are places 5 miles away that take over an hour to get to... :( There was a mall that was a 10 minute drive from me, and getting there took 2 busses and over an hour.
Oddly, now that I live MUCH farther away, I have a train that goes almost exactly there, and takes about 70 minutes.
that nobody's looking for, it really does make you a better driver.
And it'll make you realize just how bad drivers really are.