i've seen:
reading a book, reading a report while on the cell phone
practicing on the steering wheel with drumsticks,
playing the flute,
and all of the "normal" hygiene related activities.

the tops occurred some years back. it was about 11:00 oclock at night in late winter. we had a pretty good snow pack on the ground but it had warmed up to the upper forties which created an incredible thick fog. you could barely see 50 feet. I was driving down rt 495 travelling at about 25-30 struggling to keep it between the lines. There was very little traffic but I didn't dare go any slower for fear of getting rear ended.

Through the fog I see a light ahead in the middle of the road. It looked like a house window at first, so I was rather spooked. as i got closer I could see it was a full size SUV with the interior lights on. Sure enough there across the steering wheel was a paperback book the guys was reading.

 

Mobile phone use in Germany is banned in moving cars even by passengers. The thought being that the driver could just hand the phone to a passenger and use the speaker phone feature.

I like your idea about cleaning as a public service as "punishment".

I will add one of the things that I think should qualify for an "instant Loss of one's license". Backing up on the highway because one either missed or took the wrong exit. When I was a young boy, my parents where driving to Pittsburgh on the PA Turnpike and we where about the third car on the scene of an accident involving a 56 Ford and a tractor-trailer. The Ford had been reduced to the size of a large coffee table and three bloodied bodies that had been ejected (no seat belts in those days)where in the road way, except the driver, that was pinned inside behind the wheel. The driver had missed her exit and was backing up to it when hit by the big rig.

 

As far as cell phones in a car, I love my Nuvi, it works with my bluetooth phone. No hands needed, it answers on first ring, I talk they talk, they hang up and my phone hangs up, no hands needed.

Map reading while driving
Reading the morning paper, and drinking coffee while driving.

But the topper was the makeup as I mentioned previously, if she would have had a cell she probably would have been on that too.

 

Sometimes while driven on Route 10 with the top down I have a very frightening experience.

When stopped at a light I look in my rear view mirror and see a gigantic Lincoln Navigator, Cadillac Escalade or Chevy Suburban bearing down on me. I see the woman driver (sometimes it's a man, but usually in the morning its a woman) with a cigerette and cup of coffee in one hand, cell phone pressed to her ear with the other hand, steering I suppose with her knees. As I sit stopped at the light I close my eyes and say to myself, "Please don't hit me too hard". It's hard for me to imagine that she's going to be able to stop that big hulking vehicle because she's so preoccupied with everything else.

So far I've been lucky. But I'm seeing more and more of this every morning, and I'm sure, just based on the law of statistics, that sooner or later one of them won't be able to stop.

Sometimes when I sit at a light I watch the people in the cars crossing the intersection. Often in as many as 7 out of 10 cars the drivers have cell phones pressed to their ears. It's hard to believe that use of a handheld cell phone while operating a motor vehicle is illegal in New Jersey.

 

On a recent trip to Miami on the interstate I asked my wife to help count every car for 100 cars and see how many drivers were using cell phones, it was midafternoon and we counted 77 of 100 people on the phone. One of whom was also (at 80 MPH in a Ford Excursion weaving across the right 3 lanes of traffic- I'm talking all 4 wheels across the dashed white, not changing lanes to pass, just randomly weaving.. I thought he had to be plastered, but no, he was just typing away on his laptop keyboard balanced on the wheel, talking non-stop on the phone which he had pinched between his ear and shoulder. I passed him, honked, and gave him a "WTF!!??!!" (my top was down) and he then proceeded to tailgate me about 2-3 feet off my bumper up to about 105 MPH. (at least he was paying some sort of attention at this point) I got clear, stood on the brakes, got behind him and had my wife call the Highway Patrol with his license #. I got off two exits later. As far as I know they never took any action, they have not contacted me for more information. What a jackass. The sad thing is, in a vehicle that weighs around 7000 lbs if I'm not mistaken, when he does hit someone he'll probably kill them and wind up walking away unscathed and uncharged with any crime, he could easily have bumped me off the road and barely even felt it. I just got mad about it all over again.

 

Perhaps such drivers should be "at fault" in an accident - regardless. Perhaps insurance companies should be able to financially punish, drop, or not cover such drivers.

 

 

I think you have to consider that maybe cell phones, eating, makeup, etc are characteristics of bad drivers, not causes. I think most of the people above would be almost as idiotic without the distractions, but the distractions probably make it even worse. I don't think that if you outlawed all of the above, it would magically make all of the idiots better drivers, either.

 

A thought about cell phones:

The NUMBER ONE cause of accidents under the general heading of driver distraction is....children in the vehicle. Do we ban children from our cars?

At least one recent study indicated that accident rates were just as high for hands-free phone usage as normal hold-it-to-your-ear use. So what about conversation with passangers...is that just as dangerous? Is it time to ban passangers altogether?

I think Chris might be on to something.

 

I think there is a major difference between having a conversation with someone in the car and someone over the cell phone. The person in the car can see the traffic and conditons around, the person on the cell phone cannot.

As far as banning children, I hope you're not presenting that as a reason to not ban cell phones.

Can you post a link to the study that indicates that hands free is as dangerous as handheld. Not that I doubt it, it wouldn't surprize me, but I'd like to see the study or at least know who conducted it.