June 28, 2017 • 42 mins
There are three types of driving distractions, and no one is immune from the dangers associated with each -- young drivers and experienced drivers alike. Join Scott and Ben as they look at what’s happening inside the brain of a distracted driver.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot com. I welcome
to Car Stuff. I'm Scott. Oh, yeah, we're starting. Sorry,
I was looking at my phone. I've been. We were joined,
as always by our super producer team. That's right, Dylan
(00:26):
Fagan and Tristan McNeil, who Scott. I remember that our
last episode, I determine what we should give nicknames, and
I totally totally forgot. Yeah, it's one of those times,
I guess. So we're even if we do give them
one this time, we're the last two. Yeah, I'm just
not gonna I'm just not gonna promise it. And if
it happens, it happens. Because we had some ideas ahead
(00:47):
of the show, but I don't know if those will
make it to air. You know, we should really stop
researching cars and just go full time into nicknames. I'll
probably get some good ones that way, if we spend
some time on them. We never spent any time on them, really,
we just kind of come up with them on the fly.
That's right. Yeah, that's true, and you know I think
that works. Uh. Neither Dylan nor Tress and have written
to us to complain not yet, not yet, let me
(01:11):
check my email. You'll notice, Scott that while we're doing
the podcast, I'm checking my phone and I'm checking my email.
You're very busy over there holding a conversation, because, like
most people, I am hypothetically under the impression that I'm
good at multitasking. Yeah, but not necessarily good at it. Really.
(01:33):
You think you are, yes, But but the thing is,
you're just you're switching your attention between different things, and
you're giving all of your focus to one thing and
then all of your focus to another thing. You're not
You're not really truly multitasking where everything has equal value
across the board. Right. Absolutely. Today Scott and I are
(01:53):
exploring something that I think qualifies as a double standard
for a lot of people people. Yeah, uh, and that
is the science behind distracted driving. What happens in the
brain of a distracted driver. And we started looking into
this because we were doing research on team drivers. Yeah,
(02:16):
there's some really interesting neuroscience there, but then we quickly
found that it was like a glasshouse throwing stones situations. Yeah,
from you mean from like parents are adults saying to teens, Hey,
you gotta cut this out because well, we'll get to
it eventually, and I don't think you'll be surprised. But
there are some differences between the teen brain and the
(02:37):
adult brain, the fully formed brain, the one that is
you know, it's matured. I guess, yeah, a lot of
differences really. But the thing is teens being new drivers.
In a lot of cases, we're talking about distracted driving.
Teens being new drivers. Distracted driving is a huge part
of what causes a lot of these these individual cars
and these single car accidents. Um. It's not just uh,
(02:59):
you know, some of the devices and things that you
might initially point to. It's also having friends in the car.
It's taking a phone call and trying to um. Heck,
even trying to listen to the radio, fiddling with the radio. Yeah,
I mean all kinds of things. You cannot shift your
focus when you're a brand new driver from what you're doing,
because it's it's critical you're still learning. You don't have
that that ability to do um, you know, to talk
(03:21):
on the phone and to drive. Eating is another big one.
But then again, I don't know if I don't know
if adults do either. A lot of a lot of
adults don't. Yeah, so probably the best way for us
to explore this is to classify the types of distractions
in some rough terms. Um, but first, I do want
(03:44):
to say, in all fairness and Scott, I kinnot speak
for you in this regard. I don't think it would
be fair, but I myself, ladies and gentlemen, I am
guilty of distracted driving. I'm no saint behind the wheel,
you know. So this is not either of us, um
sort of shaming. People are talking down to them. If
you are listening to this, you're driving on the highway
(04:06):
and you're eating some fries or maybe a double cheeseburger
or even something messy like a yro. I got your back, man,
Heroes are awesome. You know what I've gotta I've gotta,
uh you know, come to terms with this. I guess
too that I'm also a distracted driver. In that case,
I don't. I don't use any kind of technology while
I'm driving, absolutely well, not answer the phone or if
a text or anything. And the alerts don't bother me.
(04:27):
I can just let it sit there until I get
to where I'm going. But I will routinely eat behind
the wheel, or do you don't even have a soft
drink or something like that, you know, something simple or
you know, adjust the radio whatever. It is a lot
of things like that. I do, sure, I don't necessarily.
I had never really counted eating as distracted driving until
it's a while back when I heard that, you know,
(04:48):
they were talking about cracking down on such things, you know,
as distracted driving. Yeah, come on, who who can't eat
a cheeseburger and you know, balance a a drink between
their legs and and you know, in order of fries
in the cup holder, and drive a stick shift at
the same time. Who can't do that? The restaurants have
drive throughs Pete's sake, I think they have a different
(05:09):
um and intent and mind you can take it home
then it's hot. But but but a lot of people
just immediately as soon as you leave that out right,
refuse to accept that. I think about a long road
trip or something. You know, you're on a on a
you get the family. Yeah, you can stop at a
drive through to save time. That includes the driver. The
driver doesn't have an opportunity to stop and eat. Well,
everybody else you know does nothing. Yeah, yeah, I'm a
(05:32):
big fan. So if you're on a highway and I
know this is controversial to some people, but I think
driving for a long stretch on a highway in between
large city centers and stuff, I think it's a very
different type of driving because if you if you are
like I think, everybody eats on road trips unless you're
(05:55):
everybody eats in their car and road trips unless you know,
it's like your garage a by and there's no food
allowed within ten feet of it. I used to be
that particular, but not anymore. Yeah, you used to be
pretty big on that. I remember one time off air,
Scott uh you you like walked up to me. I
can't remember what what we had originally talked about, but
then you said, no, man, every day in traffic, I
(06:18):
just see people eating in their cars. I was like, yeah,
people do that. It was like no, no full meals.
Oh yeah, yeah, this was you know what You're reminded
me of an episode that we had done a long
long time ago when we were high speed stuff, and
I think it was on you know, techniques to eat
fast food in the car, and even I think there
was a bib maybe yeah, I saw that the head
(06:40):
pockets and yeah that protected your work clothes and it
was for people to eat things like you know that
you would require a fork for, like meat, like weird
things like noodles, like noodle dishes or whatever. I mean,
fried chicken in a bucket or something. It would be
great on this trip. Spaghetti. Yeah, it seems kind of
I mean it was. It was a fun So I
wish I knew the name of it right now, and
(07:01):
we'll maybe come up with it later. But um, that
was a fun one to do. But it was probably
in those days when when I brought that up, because
I was a little more particular about it. But you're right,
driving between city centers, there's a different kind of driving
because you're not quite as focused on um, you know,
stop lights and stop signs and pedestrians turns and intersections
(07:22):
and cars coming from the left and right. Um, you're
all moving the same direction unless you have an exit
to make, unless there's you know, a traffic stop ahead
of you. There's really very few distractions really other than
maybe that cheeseburger. Yeah, oh man. And maybe it's just
because I'm hungry that I immediately went to food. But
this is this is all to say that we are
(07:44):
aware there can often be a double standard with this.
It also reminds me of a research project I tried
to do off air for an episode idea, and I
just couldn't pull it off even to pitch it to you, Scott,
because I wanted to find a good study on the
reason people don't use turns signals. But the thing is,
no one will admit that they don't use turn signals. Everybody,
(08:06):
everybody is this paragon of turn signaling whenever they're in
a conversation with me or they're talking trash and some
form on the internet. But once they get out on
the road, they act like they're gonna run out talking
trash about turn signals. Yeah yeah, oh, they're like, oh
I hate when people don't use turn signals. And then
some people, the closest I found Wait wait wait, wait, wait,
(08:27):
we gotta we gotta go back to this for a second.
They act like they're gonna run out of turn signals,
like you know, like when you buy the car, does
it only have a hundred in each side? Like there's
a finite number of turn signals blinks that you can
get to think, I mean, what else would explain it.
So one of the legitimate things I had heard, which
(08:48):
I think is valid, but I don't agree with is
the idea that especially for drivers and like d c
um and for some reason in Atlanta too, which is
way less crowded. I've heard I ever say the problem
is when I put on my turn signal, people speed
up and don't let me in. But while that may
(09:08):
be true, the reasoning of like I'm gonna hatch a conspiracy,
nobody can know my secret plan to get in the
right lane. That's how accidents happen, because you just swerven
in and uh, I feel like I accidentally walked on
a soapbox. That's okay, you know what it's a it's
a form of distraction. It is a form of distractions.
(09:29):
Good safe regarding the turn signals, maybe a little bit
soap boxy. Yeah, maybe a little bit, but that's okay.
You know, it's important people should be using the turn signals,
but we were talking about the types of distractions. Thanks
for well that was ten minutes ago. It just grinds
my gears man. Um. Yes, so there are a great
(09:50):
name for a show or whoever heard of that before?
I like, I like the family guy. Um, all right,
so I I did get derailed, and thank you for
bringing us back. But I do stick by everything I
said about turn signals. There are studies divide distractions into
(10:11):
three rough types. So there are manual distractions, and that
would be, you know, you're fiddling with the radio. Somebody
has like a backpack or a purse in the shotgun
seat and they're driving with their left hand and they're
trying to find something. Sure, yeah, you're trying to fish
something out of the glove box, right. Anything that takes
your hands away from the wheel or away from car
(10:34):
related activities is a manual distraction. Another one would be, uh,
cognitive or auditory distraction. And this is like I hate
to say it, but we have to be honest, like
listening to your favorite podcast and getting too into it
or um, that's okay. No one really gets into this one.
(10:56):
I don't think. Maybe they do if you do right
in please Yeah they turned off the station when I
was ranting about turn signals. But there's music to write
the music as well. Yeah, there's music. And then another
big one that you mentioned at the top of the show,
especially for younger drivers in car conversations. Oh that's true. Yeah, yeah,
(11:18):
that's right. So there's three different main groups that the
affect all drivers. And what's the third one? Visual? I'm
sorry I had the We've only got through too. Yeah,
the third one is visual. That's right. So there's a
there's a visual distraction as well. Now that could be
anything from hey, your friend in the passenger seat is
showing you that that Instagram snap look at this meat
(11:39):
thing whatever, Facebook or thing well whatever, something a picture
on your phone about that. Yeah, they're showing you that,
or you know, um, maybe there's a a I don't know,
a bear in the tree. You know, that's that's outside
the outside your window as you passed by, um, and
I know it bears. An extreme example, let's say someone's
(12:00):
walking a cute dog that you want to look at.
That's a that's a better one maybe, Or an in
car entertainment system, you know, like a drop down screen
by the just in front of the rear view something
like that. Yeah, playing a movie, yeah, and you you're
attempted to lean back and take a look at what's
on the screen. Um, or you know, it could be
in something else inside the vehicle. You know, your your
(12:22):
kid in the back seat, you know you can see
in the rear view mirror is doing something funny, you know,
shaking the rattle or whatever it would be. I don't
I don't know what kids do, grab their feet, put
in their mouth, something like that. You know, it's funny.
It's a visual distraction, absolutely, and from those three rough
categories arise a panopoly of diversions. Road time, road time
(12:42):
danger should also um man, Sorry about those visual distraction examples.
Those are terrible. What well, I would stop that, would
pull over and look at that's pretty regional. I mean,
it happens here. It probably happens in the Pacific Northwest
or something. But where else? Really? Bear town? Is there
a place called bear Town? There's bear City? There's a
(13:05):
real bear city? Man? All right, Well, we will return
with some examples of the stats after a brief word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Man, I can't believe
(13:25):
I thought you were completely serious when you said bear city.
I thought it was like some conservationist thing. Well, there
there may be a bear city somewhere. I don't know. Well,
if there is, what a distraction that would be? It
would be? It still doesn't top the largest and most
common distraction that teen driver's face. And you would think
ben that, you know, given the time that we're in,
right now, that texting would be the number one distraction
(13:49):
for drivers of all ages. I certainly did. But that's
not true, is it. No, it's not. It's talking on
the phone, which is so strange of teens admit to
talking on the phone while driving. I believe that, sure,
but wait, wait, wait, let's admit to I know that's
a tricky word, right, it is, because it depends on
who's asking the question, like, oh no, I don't, I
(14:09):
don't ever do that. Right. It's the same thing with people,
you know, in their turn signals, Oh man, too soon? Yeah,
but yeah, you're right, you're absolutely right, Um, in texting,
which would count as a manual distraction primarily for our
purposes here, it's still also a visual distraction. But I
always say it counts manual primarily. It comes in second place. Yeah,
(14:30):
with seventy eight percent of people admitting to texting while
they're driving. Now that includes team drivers, adult drivers as well.
So um again sent admitting to it. It's a it's
a real Can we say it's an epidemic? At this point,
I don't know about epidemic. Maybe it's a it's it's
a dangerous trend. It's like a majority of drivers. Yeah, yeah,
(14:52):
it really is. And I mean seventy um staggering number.
Really when you consider what what is happening in the
car and what's happening outside the car at sixty or
seventy or eighty miles an hour and they're and they're
you know, averting their their their gaze down to the
phone screen. However, a lot of people have different techniques
for doing this too. I've noticed, you know. It's one
(15:13):
technique is to hold the phone up at you know,
the about the one o'clock position on the on the
steering wheel and text that way so they can keep
your eyes on the road and supposedly the screen. At
the same time, you see plenty of people that are
staring down into their lap and you know exactly what
they're doing, but they're doing that again at seventy five.
The distance you travel is just it's it's unreal when
you consider your your eyes are completely off the road
(15:35):
and that time and that frame of time. And I
know we said we well at least I might sound
like uh curmudgeon, le old man at this point. He
just can't done that. Gosh, Dawn sell you la telephones
or whatever. But the truth of that, the truth of
the matter is that texting while driving, Um, the effect
(15:55):
it produces is disturbingly similar to the way that someone
inebriated behind the will would drive. Yeah. And this is
where people feel confident though. They feel that they feel
that they're able to do both. Their feel that they're
able to drive, their feel that they're able to text,
their feel they're able to combine the two you know, well, again,
while they're traveling at highway speeds or even in city traffic,
(16:17):
which is probably even more dangerous really, um, maybe not
fatality wise, but just more stuff to hit. Yeah, there's
a lot of stuff to hit. I mean, that's where
you get you know, the the the errant dog that
runs out in front of you, you know, or um,
you know, a jogger that you know doesn't see you
coming or or you don't see them coming. And more likely,
if you're texting right and there are more cars, which
(16:39):
means there are other people who could also be texting,
make a bad decision, miss something, the reaction time is
slowed and because another car could have swerved out of
the way but was also texting, Boom, you've got an accident,
and like, like Scott said, it comes down to multitasking
because every time that we think we're having it all,
(17:03):
you know, eating the spaghetti, texted on the phone, also
fiddling with the radio because you know, I gotta catch
the latest car stuff, the latest car stuff. There we go. Okay,
I was trying to think of a good radio station. Okay,
there are none. Yeah, well everybody's got a good local station.
I don't know. Ben podcast is king. You gotta you
(17:26):
gotta remember that. We gotta keep saying that driving home.
All right, you're right, you're right. That's a good point.
I'll change that's a little bit self serving. But but
what you're getting at, I think is that, um, it
affects your brain in ways that you don't really consider
when you're doing all this stuff. Absolutely, there's something physically
happening here. Yeah. So even simple car maneuvers right driving
(17:50):
without distractions is already a really complicated endeavor cognitively speaking.
So like what one of the simplest things could do
in a car a right hand turn here in the US,
right with your turn signal? Yeah with you, yes, yeah,
with I'll see how many times I can fit that in.
(18:10):
All right, I won't. But no, no, no, it's fine.
People need to know Scott. But even point being, even
if you are turning with a signal or without a signal,
or reversing your car, those actions require multiple brain regions
to operate in concerts. So the motor, the prietle, the occipital,
(18:32):
and the cerebellary courtesy, So all these different lobes and
brain regions are firing up, you know, the part of
your brain that says, like, let's handle spatial reasoning, let's
handle this muscle movement, et cetera. And it can be
confusing to a new driver because it's a sensation that
they don't normally get there. It's a confusion really of
what to do. And it's almost like you have to
step through these processes in order to back the car
(18:54):
out of the parking spot at target or wherever you are.
Maybe maybe you know, experienced drivers take that for granted.
Now you know they're they are able to carry in
a conversation with someone in the car at the same time.
But then again there's still adults that will need to
you know, and in some cases, like I think someone
on one of these people here pointed out that um,
you need to turn down the radio every time you
(19:14):
try to parallel park the car. Or I've done this
before where I've had the radio up nice and loud,
and when I exit the highway, I turn it turn
it down, just because it seems like it. It sharpens
my focus. It seems like it's it allows me to
concentrate better on what I need to know, like the
next road. I need to make a left on ELM,
but with the radio cranked up and people in the
car distracting me and everything, Um, just take one of
(19:36):
those distractions out of the out of the scenario. That's yeah,
that's a good point, and it's illustrative of the actual experience.
And this is something that a lot of people encounter.
We've all probably encountered this, but you don't read too
much about it. Not only can the music distract you,
(19:58):
but the type of music that you're lane, if you're
playing music, can affect the way you drive. You know,
like louder rock music, man I sound like in my nineties,
you know, like louder rock music with a nice bass
groove and like really hard hitting drums, a snare symbol,
electric tar riff. People drive faster when they're listening to
(20:20):
that sort of music versus classical music or something a
little more calming, or like a smooth jazz or something. Yeah,
but but yeah, it's it's uh, it's something that's calm.
We've had some conversations with listeners in the past about um,
you know maybe road trip uh soundtracks like m Yeah,
your mixtape. Right, we gotta put together a mix tape.
But if you're gonna put together, you know, a modern
(20:42):
electronic version of that ben and you know, have your
your favorites on there, what's going to be included? And
that may give it give a hint or an idea
of what type of driver you are, really, right, that's
a good points got. But regardless of what type of
driver you may or may not consider yourself, your brain
has the same order of operations for the same driving
(21:03):
situations as the vast majority of other drivers. So what
happens when we add a distraction? You know, somebody takes
a phone call. This is when you're parietal lobe really
comes into play. So the priortal lobe handles this attention
switching that we were talking about earlier. So the part
(21:25):
that's look at the cheeseburger, eat the cheeseburger. Also, drive,
don't hit that car. Oh it's a cheeseburger that switches
back and forth can be confused with multitasking. The prietal
lobe is in charge of that, and it's also in
charge of integrating sensory information into you know, the gestalt,
the overall experience, right, So that's why you can hear
(21:47):
and see things at the same time. But something weird
happens when you're listening to sentences on a cell phone
while you're driving, because you're trying to focus on whatever
they're saying as well. So again you're switching between these
two things. You're you're focused, switching, and the activity in
that region of the brain decreases by something like thirty
(22:09):
seven percent when you're trying to listen to a cell
phone conversation and drive at the same time. Scary. You
can see where this would be dangerous, right, And this
statistic goes for all drivers, adults as well as teens.
There's another brain region that comes in to play here.
So while the prietal lobe activity is decreasing, activity in
(22:31):
the prefrontal cortex, and this is responsible for decision making,
it also plays a role in multitasking quote unquote, activity
in the prefrontal cortex increases while you're doing more stuff,
eating cheeseburger, listening to you know, um, the latest uh
Billy Joel. I don't know. Oh yeah, that's what the
(22:51):
kids are listening to about Elton John in there. Um
you know some steely dan of Billy Joel hasn't put
out an albums, but no kidding, you know, seeing Billy
joelan concert many times. Recent show, he's gonna be the
first one to perform at the first music performer at
our brand new stadium here in Atlanta on Trust Park.
(23:14):
Oh no, I think it's tonight. I think it's happening
very soon, you know as we record this. But um, again,
way off topic. We're not a music show, right but
but but the thing is, um, that switch that you're
talking about, you know, the way that um, you know,
one area decreases activity, another one increases activity. There's something
called inattentional blindness. And I'm saying that the right way.
(23:35):
I hope it not. Yeah, inattentional, it's not unintentional. It's
what does that mean? Well, it means that you can
look at something without really grasping what it is you
can you can look at it and not see it.
So there could be a red light in front of you. Um,
it could be anything like um um, a walker, you know,
someone walking across the road, pedestrian, a bicycle that's on
(23:56):
the on the shoulder. It could be just about anything.
Sign that says merge or wrong way. Oh yeah, well again,
all of these are dangerous if you have this this uh,
this temporary inattentional blindness, right, a temporary lapse and attention
can have lasting effects. So we're we've been talking about
(24:17):
some of the cognitive stuff. Visual manual distractions create that
same kind of let's call it a temporary brain drain,
So it's it's draining activity in one area to give
a little extra oop in the other in the other
parts of your brain. Even though it happens to everyone,
this poses a particular and a heightened danger to newly
(24:38):
licensed teens. In particular for teens is even worse because
this is where it comes back to where saying not
a fully developed adult brain, because uh, you know, when
you're licensed to drive your let's say ballpark fifteen sixteen
years old, Yeah, you know, you permit driving that type
of thing. Some states have like a fourteen year old provision.
But yeah, yeah, they're exceptions here and there. But but
(24:59):
you're young, and the idea is, you know, all the
stuff that we talked about, all these distractions and everything
that happens to everybody, but the undeveloped team brain. I mean,
they they've got a preferntal cortex that doesn't develop are
mature until they're in their mid twenties, so there's a
significant amount of time that they have to wait until
they really have all of their cognitive skills together, you know,
(25:19):
like the whole brain is really working together, firing together
to make all this work, so that there on a
on a level ground, I guess with more mature drivers.
So that's almost a decade of driving before this maturation occurs,
which means not only are younger drivers multitasking more than
(25:42):
previous generations, but they're also not as well equipped to
divide their attention. And of course, neither Scott nor I
are condoning adult drivers multitasking or attention switching, but we
are saying it's even risk skier for teens. So one
in three teens take their eyes off the road when
(26:04):
app notifications come on you know, here's the new what
did you call it? Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and yeah, something
like that. That's that's whatever the kids are holding in
their hands these days. But here's the problem is that
you would think that you could just you know, kind
of give a lecture to your team or your your
new driver and say they don't do that when you're
behind the wheel. It's not a smart thing. Here's all
(26:26):
the statistics, um, you know, it's just not a smart
thing to do. So the question is, ben, where are
they learning this? We will answer that question after a
brief word from our sponsor and we're back. That's right,
(26:49):
As Scott used to say, you pay for the whole seat,
but you only need the edge. So what's going on there?
Where kids learning all these terrible habits from their parents?
It's ns out the teens watch the parents and uh,
and that's where they pick up a lot of these
bad habits. They pick up good habits, but they also
pick up bad habits, and those are the ones that
you want to really focus on, you know, maybe not
(27:12):
doing yourself. When you've got a team that you know,
young impressionable young driver or you know somebody who's almost
of driving age you really want to clean up your
act at that point because they are watching either watching
what you do, they want to be like you, which is,
you know, that's great compliment, but not so great if
you know mom and dad text behind the wheel. So
(27:32):
sure is Here's here's one of the statistics that blew
my mind. So we said earlier top of the show
around there that of teens talk on the phone while
they're driving, one percent of parents do the same thing. Well,
there you go. It proves it right. Teams watch their
parents learn from what they do, they do exactly the
same thing. So the teens that are that are, you know,
(27:54):
children of parents that text, also text themselves. And I
know this feels a little you know, public service announcement
e or whatever. But the science here is interesting because
the multitasking occurs on and off the road. It doesn't
it doesn't matter what you're doing. And I've been going
over and over in my head again and again the
(28:15):
old insult he can't chew gum and walk at the
same time. I think, technically, no one is. It sounds
like our brains are just switching to chew gum, chew gum,
left foot, chew gum, chew gum right foot because it
feels really fast rate. It really does feel like that.
But you know, driving just accentuates this. I mean it
shows you that, you know, driving is not the exact
(28:37):
same thing every time. Like, let's say, okay, you're chewing
gum and walk an example. Sure, I think you can
get away with that because, of course, muscle memory. It
tells you that when you got gum in your mouth,
it's just chew right well. Plus, I'm kind of like
a maverick. I'm a really good walker, Is that right?
I thought maybe I thought maybe the type of gum
YouTube that made you the Maverick's good. Yeah, throwback gum
(28:57):
of some kind. You like fruit stripe or you know
big writers. Oh you remember fruit stripe? Oh yeah, that's
fruit stripe. Worked for about ten seconds that was so
weird or less, and then it was awful. Okay, it
wasn't just me, No, no, no, not. Modern gum has
the ability to hold flavor for so much longer. Kids
just don't know how good they've got a right, So
(29:19):
there are ways to fix this, regardless of how much
gobbledegook might seem involved with the terminology by neuroscience. Yeah,
it's they're they're easy ways. And the first one is
to just be a good example. Not only if you're
a parent teaching a kid, but if you're an older
driver you know, and got a newer driver with you
for some reason like uh, maybe you have a cousin
(29:42):
or you know, a sibling or something closer to your age. Yeah,
then you still can be helpful too. Even if you're
just a passenger. You'd be like, hey, don't kill us. Yeah, yeah,
there's nothing wrong with speaking up when you're in the car,
you know, if something's going wrong. But but again, set
a good example, you know, no matter what your age is. Really,
(30:02):
I mean, because someone is looking up to you as
a role model, or someone is looking at you as
an example of what to do when you're behind the wheels,
So it all makes sense. I mean you really, you
really do need to set that good example. Um, there
are other things that you can do to Ben And
now this one, this one's a this is an interesting
one that you may have to really coerce somebody to
(30:23):
partake in. Really, I think I think I know what
you're gonna say. Well, it's getting to like getting towards
the road rage type situations, you know, where where you
need to maintain a level head. And I would say
that new drivers and experienced drivers alike have problems with this,
with road rage, and that's I don't know if we've
done a road rage episode, but we probably should if
(30:44):
we haven't. Um, but let so you could definitely tag
along a my car because I sometimes experience that. So
I would say that, UM, this is it might be
a tough one, a tough sell in a lot of cases.
But if you can teach somebody or you can talk
somebody into um it's funny as it sounds, meditation or
(31:06):
calming exercises of some kind, or even listening to gentler music,
or maybe you can just maybe think of something calming
or soothing when something like this happens. But you know, UM,
meditation or just you can calming exercises really do help
in a lot of cases. Yeah, and I know this
for a lot of people. I include myself in this group.
(31:27):
Initially this sounds kind of hippie dippy it does. It's like,
what kind of slippery slope is this? Do I need
to start like a Roman therapy and you know bubble baths. No,
you don't need to have like a chime on your
on your wrist watch and you know, put your you know,
your thumb and your forefinger together and go ome or
anything like that. You know, well, you know there there's
(31:48):
certain tricks that you can do to calm yourself down.
And everybody has their own little thing and think of
your mind like a muscle. Yeah, yeah, exactly right, and
you need to relax that sometimes. I mean sometimes it's
just sometimes your blood pressure just goes through the roof
and there are ways to bring that back down and
everybody needs to work on that, and myself included. So
again no soapbox here. I mean, I'm I'm blumping myself
(32:08):
in with everybody else that's angry on the road. Sometimes
it happens. I I had to reluctantly come on board
with this because you know, despite my initial aversion, it
does it does have an impact. There's another one that
your insurance company may also ask you to consider, which
will it could have an effect on rates, you know,
(32:30):
if you're if you're springing for your kids insurance. Um,
but I am not persuaded that these work. What's that
that's the parents kid drive like a driving contract. Oh yeah,
so if if you violate a curfew, say yea driving privilege,
here's the here's the penalty. And if you, um, you know,
(32:51):
you're caught speeding, let's sake, get a speeding ticket, here's
the penalty. And it may be, you know, you lose
your phone privileges for a week or whatever the case
may be. I mean, it could be stronger than that,
even um. But there's there's all kinds of if this
then that situations that are set up on on these
driving contracts, and they're available online. You can just download
them and and work with your family to figure out
(33:12):
what is best for you. Guys. Yeah, it's just a
fill in the blank thing really. I mean, but but
it's a contract that you both sign and you both
agree to and then you know, you post it somewhere
and uh, someone violates one of those those rules and regulations,
the penalty should happen. I mean, that's that's one of
the things you gotta enforce it. I just don't. Yeah,
I mean, it's not it's not a legally binding document.
(33:34):
And also I'm not I'm not persuading, of course, I'm
not in that situation. Yeah, I'm not out here trying
to get kids to sign paperwork really well, what's with
the clipboard? Then? Oh no, no, no, that's uh that's
actually for uh, I've got some ocean front property in Utah.
It was like like you to get in early. Let
(33:55):
me just get my pen here. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah,
a good deal. Yeah. Um, you know there's a There's
one other thing too that we should probably mention, is
that just open communication with if you have a team driver,
and I don't. We're not picking on teens by any means,
but if you have a team driver, open, you know,
open talks about you know, like what they're doing on
the road, is it is It is a great idea.
(34:16):
If they say that they get into a car a
lot of things, you know, with their friends and their
friends are texting. Maybe you have some sage advice that
you can pass on to them, you know, like how
to how to get out of that situation. I know that.
You know, when a lot of us that that would
have teams right now are are we're young enough to
to drive? The distractions were different. They weren't. The phones.
They weren't, you know, the the snapchats that the kids
are using and all that, right, the insta snap you know,
(34:41):
all that stuff. Oh yeah, okay, I'm playing it up
a little bit, but it was different. You know, there
were there were different distractions and we've gone through the
same thing. So you can offer some of that advice
to your team driver. And you know, it's not bad
just to kind of have a back and forth conversation
with someone who's a new driver anyways, because they may
have some questions or concerns that you can answer easily
(35:01):
for them that they've just otherwise they don't have anybody
to go to. Really, yeah, it's worth it. I think.
I think that's very well said Scott. I think that's
a good point. And I have to say, well, we're
looking into this. I realized that I am fascinated by
(35:22):
brain activity for different types of driving, and I want
to know what you think about this, folks. Would it
be would it be worth our time to look into
what goes on in the brain of a race car driver,
because you know, those men and women have such sharp,
fast reaction times, like abnormally higher than the average person.
(35:44):
Have you ever seen there's there's a few, um not studies,
but more like you know, I think that where they train,
you know, when they train drivers because of course they're
they're physical athletes, they have to be. But they also
train them with reaction times. And you know, whether that's
like a drag racer who has to re to you know,
the Christmas tree lights, or if somebody that you know
just simply needs to have quick, quick responses, like an
(36:05):
IndyCar driver or a NASCAR driver. Um, they'll place them
in front of a wall sometimes. I've seen this one example,
like a huge wall with lights on it, and the
idea is that as the lights light, you have to
touch the light as fast as you can. And these
guys are incredible with this, I mean's super fast reaction times. Um.
And then they show you know, somebody else who's not
you know, like maybe let's say it's a you know,
(36:26):
Sunday morning race that's happening. You know, it's like one
of these, um, I don't know, like you know, personal
interest type stories or something, you know, where they highlight
one of the drivers. They focus on the biographyiees. So
they'll do that and then you know, the person that's
there to interview the driver or whatever, we'll give it
a shot and they just fail miserably at the same tests.
So it shows you how sharp the mind is of
(36:46):
these people. And you've gotta wonder if they're using parts
of the brain that we're not using when we drive day.
I have to assume that they are. They must be
with with such I mean just fast, critical decisions are
made just so quick. But but who would have thought that.
You know, there's what five regions of the brain. There
are four or five regions of the brain that are
used just simply making you know, right turn emergency. It's
(37:10):
it's crazy to think about everything that's happening inside your
head all at once. Well, because you drive, you drive
with your whole body, right, You gotta you gotta use
your limbs, you gotta use your senses. You have to
plan ahead. I mean, it's one of the coolest things
that people have ever done. Like the species. Yeah, I
mean it's hand eye foot coordination, and it's thinking, you know,
(37:33):
it's it's uh it's um I guess estimating or guessing
what people are going to do ahead of you. I mean,
there's there's so many things that come into play when
you're driving, and we're all subject to that. It's not
just teens, it's it's mature drivers as well. And uh
man it's just it's just a lot happening there, and
we hope this, uh, this look at some of the
neuroscience has been helpful or at least interesting to Uh.
(37:57):
Now you are armed with some stitute sticks you can
drop in a conversation because Scott one thing we didn't say.
We've got a lot of younger listeners out there too,
So if your parents are getting a little high and mighty,
you can go ahead and let them know that statistically,
they are just as bad, if not worse, in terms
of driving habits. I learned it from watching you mom. Yeah,
(38:18):
say it just like that, Make sure you point your
finger accus it totally. Wasn't that an old commercial? Yeah? Yeah,
it was like a drug commercial or something. I think
it was like a heroin or something. I mean, anti
drug p s A. I think a drug commercialist wasn't
promoting heroin us. I think it was. I think it was,
you know, the opposite, quite the opposite so or something
(38:41):
like that. It was another it was it was an
anti drug commercial. And it's an often quoted line. But yeah,
I suppose in this case texting and driving talking on
the phone they did learn it from watching Mom and
Dad in a lot of cases, and this this episode.
If you found this interesting, there's some other episodes would
like to recommend if you haven't checked them out before.
(39:02):
We did probably one of my favorite topics, if not
the actual episode. We did an episode on taxi drivers
in London. Oh yeah, with the knowledge? Yeah what is
the knowledge? All the knowledge? The knowledge is a test
that all London taxi drivers have to take. Right, and
you include me into this, so this is your is
your thing, but I know of it now because of
(39:23):
the episode. But it's it grows the brain. The brain
physically grows after you take this tester while you're learning
to take this test, because it is it's probably the
most intense test that anybody would have to take anywhere. Really.
I mean, it's well, okay, driving for driving, maybe that's
I have to qualify that with her driving, but um,
but it's really complex because they're traditionally not allowed to
(39:48):
have a map with them or GPS. They simply have
to no a vast amount of London's roads and the
areas routes to take depending on changing traffic conditions. So
it's not just like what's the fastest way to get
between this point and that point. Yeah, it's give me
(40:09):
five routes that go between here and there and which
one is best at three pm on a Sunday, considering
there's a game or something like that, and you have
to learn that for the entire city and for every time,
and knowing all the events that happened. It's just it's
it's it's an unbelievably complex taster or quizz you have
to take in order to become a London taxi driver.
So those guys and girls know their stuff, and what
(40:31):
the what the studies found this is so weird. This
is real mind over matter stuff. What they found was
after a certain amount of time driving as a cab driver,
after passing the knowledge and operating as a as a
black cab driver, then these people would have, as Scott said,
physically larger regions of the brain associated with spatial reasoning.
(40:54):
Their thoughts actually changed the physical world in the strangest way.
So you can check out that episode for more neuroscience
as it interacts with the automotive world, and then a
couple others that you might want to check out, depending
on which side of the driving age war you're on,
would be our previous episodes on the driving age limit
(41:20):
on both ends. Yeah, sixteen two young or is it?
Is it just right? I mean a lot of people
feel that again with what we've described here today, that
you know, maybe you're just not exactly ready. Your brain
is not exactly ready for that type of responsibility yet. Yeah,
And and at what age should there be a mandatory
age to remove someone's driving privileges? That was an interesting episode.
I remember we got a lot of feedback on that
(41:42):
from you know, adults and and kids are just to drive.
So even there were even some you know, i'll say
some youngsters, uh that wrote in and said, you know,
I kind of understand what they're saying. I mean, maybe
it's not the time to drive it. Maybe maybe i'd
I'd be able to make better, more mature decisions if
we were to wait a little bit later in life,
(42:03):
let's say the driving age became one instead of right. Yeah,
and it's a good question. You can find all those shows,
along with every show Scott and I have ever done,
on our website car Stuff show dot com, and of
course you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. Please
don't look while you're driving, and good advice face and
(42:23):
one last thing, all of our best ideas for topics
come from you, not in general, you you specifically. So
if you have an idea for us something we should
cover an upcoming episode that you think your fellow listeners
want to hear, let us know. You can email us directly.
We are car stuff at how stuff works dot com.
(42:46):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, this
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think, send an email to podcast that how stuff
works dot com
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot com. I welcome
to Car Stuff. I'm Scott. Oh, yeah, we're starting. Sorry,
I was looking at my phone. I've been. We were joined,
as always by our super producer team. That's right, Dylan
(00:26):
Fagan and Tristan McNeil, who Scott. I remember that our
last episode, I determine what we should give nicknames, and
I totally totally forgot. Yeah, it's one of those times,
I guess. So we're even if we do give them
one this time, we're the last two. Yeah, I'm just
not gonna I'm just not gonna promise it. And if
it happens, it happens. Because we had some ideas ahead
(00:47):
of the show, but I don't know if those will
make it to air. You know, we should really stop
researching cars and just go full time into nicknames. I'll
probably get some good ones that way, if we spend
some time on them. We never spent any time on them, really,
we just kind of come up with them on the fly.
That's right. Yeah, that's true, and you know I think
that works. Uh. Neither Dylan nor Tress and have written
to us to complain not yet, not yet, let me
(01:11):
check my email. You'll notice, Scott that while we're doing
the podcast, I'm checking my phone and I'm checking my email.
You're very busy over there holding a conversation, because, like
most people, I am hypothetically under the impression that I'm
good at multitasking. Yeah, but not necessarily good at it. Really.
(01:33):
You think you are, yes, But but the thing is,
you're just you're switching your attention between different things, and
you're giving all of your focus to one thing and
then all of your focus to another thing. You're not
You're not really truly multitasking where everything has equal value
across the board. Right. Absolutely. Today Scott and I are
(01:53):
exploring something that I think qualifies as a double standard
for a lot of people people. Yeah, uh, and that
is the science behind distracted driving. What happens in the
brain of a distracted driver. And we started looking into
this because we were doing research on team drivers. Yeah,
(02:16):
there's some really interesting neuroscience there, but then we quickly
found that it was like a glasshouse throwing stones situations. Yeah,
from you mean from like parents are adults saying to teens, Hey,
you gotta cut this out because well, we'll get to
it eventually, and I don't think you'll be surprised. But
there are some differences between the teen brain and the
(02:37):
adult brain, the fully formed brain, the one that is
you know, it's matured. I guess, yeah, a lot of
differences really. But the thing is teens being new drivers.
In a lot of cases, we're talking about distracted driving.
Teens being new drivers. Distracted driving is a huge part
of what causes a lot of these these individual cars
and these single car accidents. Um. It's not just uh,
(02:59):
you know, some of the devices and things that you
might initially point to. It's also having friends in the car.
It's taking a phone call and trying to um. Heck,
even trying to listen to the radio, fiddling with the radio. Yeah,
I mean all kinds of things. You cannot shift your
focus when you're a brand new driver from what you're doing,
because it's it's critical you're still learning. You don't have
that that ability to do um, you know, to talk
(03:21):
on the phone and to drive. Eating is another big one.
But then again, I don't know if I don't know
if adults do either. A lot of a lot of
adults don't. Yeah, so probably the best way for us
to explore this is to classify the types of distractions
in some rough terms. Um, but first, I do want
(03:44):
to say, in all fairness and Scott, I kinnot speak
for you in this regard. I don't think it would
be fair, but I myself, ladies and gentlemen, I am
guilty of distracted driving. I'm no saint behind the wheel,
you know. So this is not either of us, um
sort of shaming. People are talking down to them. If
you are listening to this, you're driving on the highway
(04:06):
and you're eating some fries or maybe a double cheeseburger
or even something messy like a yro. I got your back, man,
Heroes are awesome. You know what I've gotta I've gotta,
uh you know, come to terms with this. I guess
too that I'm also a distracted driver. In that case,
I don't. I don't use any kind of technology while
I'm driving, absolutely well, not answer the phone or if
a text or anything. And the alerts don't bother me.
(04:27):
I can just let it sit there until I get
to where I'm going. But I will routinely eat behind
the wheel, or do you don't even have a soft
drink or something like that, you know, something simple or
you know, adjust the radio whatever. It is a lot
of things like that. I do, sure, I don't necessarily.
I had never really counted eating as distracted driving until
it's a while back when I heard that, you know,
(04:48):
they were talking about cracking down on such things, you know,
as distracted driving. Yeah, come on, who who can't eat
a cheeseburger and you know, balance a a drink between
their legs and and you know, in order of fries
in the cup holder, and drive a stick shift at
the same time. Who can't do that? The restaurants have
drive throughs Pete's sake, I think they have a different
(05:09):
um and intent and mind you can take it home
then it's hot. But but but a lot of people
just immediately as soon as you leave that out right,
refuse to accept that. I think about a long road
trip or something. You know, you're on a on a
you get the family. Yeah, you can stop at a
drive through to save time. That includes the driver. The
driver doesn't have an opportunity to stop and eat. Well,
everybody else you know does nothing. Yeah, yeah, I'm a
(05:32):
big fan. So if you're on a highway and I
know this is controversial to some people, but I think
driving for a long stretch on a highway in between
large city centers and stuff, I think it's a very
different type of driving because if you if you are
like I think, everybody eats on road trips unless you're
(05:55):
everybody eats in their car and road trips unless you know,
it's like your garage a by and there's no food
allowed within ten feet of it. I used to be
that particular, but not anymore. Yeah, you used to be
pretty big on that. I remember one time off air,
Scott uh you you like walked up to me. I
can't remember what what we had originally talked about, but
then you said, no, man, every day in traffic, I
(06:18):
just see people eating in their cars. I was like, yeah,
people do that. It was like no, no full meals.
Oh yeah, yeah, this was you know what You're reminded
me of an episode that we had done a long
long time ago when we were high speed stuff, and
I think it was on you know, techniques to eat
fast food in the car, and even I think there
was a bib maybe yeah, I saw that the head
(06:40):
pockets and yeah that protected your work clothes and it
was for people to eat things like you know that
you would require a fork for, like meat, like weird
things like noodles, like noodle dishes or whatever. I mean,
fried chicken in a bucket or something. It would be
great on this trip. Spaghetti. Yeah, it seems kind of
I mean it was. It was a fun So I
wish I knew the name of it right now, and
(07:01):
we'll maybe come up with it later. But um, that
was a fun one to do. But it was probably
in those days when when I brought that up, because
I was a little more particular about it. But you're right,
driving between city centers, there's a different kind of driving
because you're not quite as focused on um, you know,
stop lights and stop signs and pedestrians turns and intersections
(07:22):
and cars coming from the left and right. Um, you're
all moving the same direction unless you have an exit
to make, unless there's you know, a traffic stop ahead
of you. There's really very few distractions really other than
maybe that cheeseburger. Yeah, oh man. And maybe it's just
because I'm hungry that I immediately went to food. But
this is this is all to say that we are
(07:44):
aware there can often be a double standard with this.
It also reminds me of a research project I tried
to do off air for an episode idea, and I
just couldn't pull it off even to pitch it to you, Scott,
because I wanted to find a good study on the
reason people don't use turns signals. But the thing is,
no one will admit that they don't use turn signals. Everybody,
(08:06):
everybody is this paragon of turn signaling whenever they're in
a conversation with me or they're talking trash and some
form on the internet. But once they get out on
the road, they act like they're gonna run out talking
trash about turn signals. Yeah yeah, oh, they're like, oh
I hate when people don't use turn signals. And then
some people, the closest I found Wait wait wait, wait, wait,
(08:27):
we gotta we gotta go back to this for a second.
They act like they're gonna run out of turn signals,
like you know, like when you buy the car, does
it only have a hundred in each side? Like there's
a finite number of turn signals blinks that you can
get to think, I mean, what else would explain it.
So one of the legitimate things I had heard, which
(08:48):
I think is valid, but I don't agree with is
the idea that especially for drivers and like d c
um and for some reason in Atlanta too, which is
way less crowded. I've heard I ever say the problem
is when I put on my turn signal, people speed
up and don't let me in. But while that may
(09:08):
be true, the reasoning of like I'm gonna hatch a conspiracy,
nobody can know my secret plan to get in the
right lane. That's how accidents happen, because you just swerven
in and uh, I feel like I accidentally walked on
a soapbox. That's okay, you know what it's a it's
a form of distraction. It is a form of distractions.
(09:29):
Good safe regarding the turn signals, maybe a little bit
soap boxy. Yeah, maybe a little bit, but that's okay.
You know, it's important people should be using the turn signals,
but we were talking about the types of distractions. Thanks
for well that was ten minutes ago. It just grinds
my gears man. Um. Yes, so there are a great
(09:50):
name for a show or whoever heard of that before?
I like, I like the family guy. Um, all right,
so I I did get derailed, and thank you for
bringing us back. But I do stick by everything I
said about turn signals. There are studies divide distractions into
(10:11):
three rough types. So there are manual distractions, and that
would be, you know, you're fiddling with the radio. Somebody
has like a backpack or a purse in the shotgun
seat and they're driving with their left hand and they're
trying to find something. Sure, yeah, you're trying to fish
something out of the glove box, right. Anything that takes
your hands away from the wheel or away from car
(10:34):
related activities is a manual distraction. Another one would be, uh,
cognitive or auditory distraction. And this is like I hate
to say it, but we have to be honest, like
listening to your favorite podcast and getting too into it
or um, that's okay. No one really gets into this one.
(10:56):
I don't think. Maybe they do if you do right
in please Yeah they turned off the station when I
was ranting about turn signals. But there's music to write
the music as well. Yeah, there's music. And then another
big one that you mentioned at the top of the show,
especially for younger drivers in car conversations. Oh that's true. Yeah, yeah,
(11:18):
that's right. So there's three different main groups that the
affect all drivers. And what's the third one? Visual? I'm
sorry I had the We've only got through too. Yeah,
the third one is visual. That's right. So there's a
there's a visual distraction as well. Now that could be
anything from hey, your friend in the passenger seat is
showing you that that Instagram snap look at this meat
(11:39):
thing whatever, Facebook or thing well whatever, something a picture
on your phone about that. Yeah, they're showing you that,
or you know, um, maybe there's a a I don't know,
a bear in the tree. You know, that's that's outside
the outside your window as you passed by, um, and
I know it bears. An extreme example, let's say someone's
(12:00):
walking a cute dog that you want to look at.
That's a that's a better one maybe, Or an in
car entertainment system, you know, like a drop down screen
by the just in front of the rear view something
like that. Yeah, playing a movie, yeah, and you you're
attempted to lean back and take a look at what's
on the screen. Um, or you know, it could be
in something else inside the vehicle. You know, your your
(12:22):
kid in the back seat, you know you can see
in the rear view mirror is doing something funny, you know,
shaking the rattle or whatever it would be. I don't
I don't know what kids do, grab their feet, put
in their mouth, something like that. You know, it's funny.
It's a visual distraction, absolutely, and from those three rough
categories arise a panopoly of diversions. Road time, road time
(12:42):
danger should also um man, Sorry about those visual distraction examples.
Those are terrible. What well, I would stop that, would
pull over and look at that's pretty regional. I mean,
it happens here. It probably happens in the Pacific Northwest
or something. But where else? Really? Bear town? Is there
a place called bear Town? There's bear City? There's a
(13:05):
real bear city? Man? All right, Well, we will return
with some examples of the stats after a brief word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Man, I can't believe
(13:25):
I thought you were completely serious when you said bear city.
I thought it was like some conservationist thing. Well, there
there may be a bear city somewhere. I don't know. Well,
if there is, what a distraction that would be? It
would be? It still doesn't top the largest and most
common distraction that teen driver's face. And you would think
ben that, you know, given the time that we're in,
right now, that texting would be the number one distraction
(13:49):
for drivers of all ages. I certainly did. But that's
not true, is it. No, it's not. It's talking on
the phone, which is so strange of teens admit to
talking on the phone while driving. I believe that, sure,
but wait, wait, wait, let's admit to I know that's
a tricky word, right, it is, because it depends on
who's asking the question, like, oh no, I don't, I
(14:09):
don't ever do that. Right. It's the same thing with people,
you know, in their turn signals, Oh man, too soon? Yeah,
but yeah, you're right, you're absolutely right, Um, in texting,
which would count as a manual distraction primarily for our
purposes here, it's still also a visual distraction. But I
always say it counts manual primarily. It comes in second place. Yeah,
(14:30):
with seventy eight percent of people admitting to texting while
they're driving. Now that includes team drivers, adult drivers as well.
So um again sent admitting to it. It's a it's
a real Can we say it's an epidemic? At this point,
I don't know about epidemic. Maybe it's a it's it's
a dangerous trend. It's like a majority of drivers. Yeah, yeah,
(14:52):
it really is. And I mean seventy um staggering number.
Really when you consider what what is happening in the
car and what's happening outside the car at sixty or
seventy or eighty miles an hour and they're and they're
you know, averting their their their gaze down to the
phone screen. However, a lot of people have different techniques
for doing this too. I've noticed, you know. It's one
(15:13):
technique is to hold the phone up at you know,
the about the one o'clock position on the on the
steering wheel and text that way so they can keep
your eyes on the road and supposedly the screen. At
the same time, you see plenty of people that are
staring down into their lap and you know exactly what
they're doing, but they're doing that again at seventy five.
The distance you travel is just it's it's unreal when
you consider your your eyes are completely off the road
(15:35):
and that time and that frame of time. And I
know we said we well at least I might sound
like uh curmudgeon, le old man at this point. He
just can't done that. Gosh, Dawn sell you la telephones
or whatever. But the truth of that, the truth of
the matter is that texting while driving, Um, the effect
(15:55):
it produces is disturbingly similar to the way that someone
inebriated behind the will would drive. Yeah. And this is
where people feel confident though. They feel that they feel
that they're able to do both. Their feel that they're
able to drive, their feel that they're able to text,
their feel they're able to combine the two you know, well, again,
while they're traveling at highway speeds or even in city traffic,
(16:17):
which is probably even more dangerous really, um, maybe not
fatality wise, but just more stuff to hit. Yeah, there's
a lot of stuff to hit. I mean, that's where
you get you know, the the the errant dog that
runs out in front of you, you know, or um,
you know, a jogger that you know doesn't see you
coming or or you don't see them coming. And more likely,
if you're texting right and there are more cars, which
(16:39):
means there are other people who could also be texting,
make a bad decision, miss something, the reaction time is
slowed and because another car could have swerved out of
the way but was also texting, Boom, you've got an accident,
and like, like Scott said, it comes down to multitasking
because every time that we think we're having it all,
(17:03):
you know, eating the spaghetti, texted on the phone, also
fiddling with the radio because you know, I gotta catch
the latest car stuff, the latest car stuff. There we go. Okay,
I was trying to think of a good radio station. Okay,
there are none. Yeah, well everybody's got a good local station.
I don't know. Ben podcast is king. You gotta you
(17:26):
gotta remember that. We gotta keep saying that driving home.
All right, you're right, you're right. That's a good point.
I'll change that's a little bit self serving. But but
what you're getting at, I think is that, um, it
affects your brain in ways that you don't really consider
when you're doing all this stuff. Absolutely, there's something physically
happening here. Yeah. So even simple car maneuvers right driving
(17:50):
without distractions is already a really complicated endeavor cognitively speaking.
So like what one of the simplest things could do
in a car a right hand turn here in the US,
right with your turn signal? Yeah with you, yes, yeah,
with I'll see how many times I can fit that in.
(18:10):
All right, I won't. But no, no, no, it's fine.
People need to know Scott. But even point being, even
if you are turning with a signal or without a signal,
or reversing your car, those actions require multiple brain regions
to operate in concerts. So the motor, the prietle, the occipital,
(18:32):
and the cerebellary courtesy, So all these different lobes and
brain regions are firing up, you know, the part of
your brain that says, like, let's handle spatial reasoning, let's
handle this muscle movement, et cetera. And it can be
confusing to a new driver because it's a sensation that
they don't normally get there. It's a confusion really of
what to do. And it's almost like you have to
step through these processes in order to back the car
(18:54):
out of the parking spot at target or wherever you are.
Maybe maybe you know, experienced drivers take that for granted.
Now you know they're they are able to carry in
a conversation with someone in the car at the same time.
But then again there's still adults that will need to
you know, and in some cases, like I think someone
on one of these people here pointed out that um,
you need to turn down the radio every time you
(19:14):
try to parallel park the car. Or I've done this
before where I've had the radio up nice and loud,
and when I exit the highway, I turn it turn
it down, just because it seems like it. It sharpens
my focus. It seems like it's it allows me to
concentrate better on what I need to know, like the
next road. I need to make a left on ELM,
but with the radio cranked up and people in the
car distracting me and everything, Um, just take one of
(19:36):
those distractions out of the out of the scenario. That's yeah,
that's a good point, and it's illustrative of the actual experience.
And this is something that a lot of people encounter.
We've all probably encountered this, but you don't read too
much about it. Not only can the music distract you,
(19:58):
but the type of music that you're lane, if you're
playing music, can affect the way you drive. You know,
like louder rock music, man I sound like in my nineties,
you know, like louder rock music with a nice bass
groove and like really hard hitting drums, a snare symbol,
electric tar riff. People drive faster when they're listening to
(20:20):
that sort of music versus classical music or something a
little more calming, or like a smooth jazz or something. Yeah,
but but yeah, it's it's uh, it's something that's calm.
We've had some conversations with listeners in the past about um,
you know maybe road trip uh soundtracks like m Yeah,
your mixtape. Right, we gotta put together a mix tape.
But if you're gonna put together, you know, a modern
(20:42):
electronic version of that ben and you know, have your
your favorites on there, what's going to be included? And
that may give it give a hint or an idea
of what type of driver you are, really, right, that's
a good points got. But regardless of what type of
driver you may or may not consider yourself, your brain
has the same order of operations for the same driving
(21:03):
situations as the vast majority of other drivers. So what
happens when we add a distraction? You know, somebody takes
a phone call. This is when you're parietal lobe really
comes into play. So the priortal lobe handles this attention
switching that we were talking about earlier. So the part
(21:25):
that's look at the cheeseburger, eat the cheeseburger. Also, drive,
don't hit that car. Oh it's a cheeseburger that switches
back and forth can be confused with multitasking. The prietal
lobe is in charge of that, and it's also in
charge of integrating sensory information into you know, the gestalt,
the overall experience, right, So that's why you can hear
(21:47):
and see things at the same time. But something weird
happens when you're listening to sentences on a cell phone
while you're driving, because you're trying to focus on whatever
they're saying as well. So again you're switching between these
two things. You're you're focused, switching, and the activity in
that region of the brain decreases by something like thirty
(22:09):
seven percent when you're trying to listen to a cell
phone conversation and drive at the same time. Scary. You
can see where this would be dangerous, right, And this
statistic goes for all drivers, adults as well as teens.
There's another brain region that comes in to play here.
So while the prietal lobe activity is decreasing, activity in
(22:31):
the prefrontal cortex, and this is responsible for decision making,
it also plays a role in multitasking quote unquote, activity
in the prefrontal cortex increases while you're doing more stuff,
eating cheeseburger, listening to you know, um, the latest uh
Billy Joel. I don't know. Oh yeah, that's what the
(22:51):
kids are listening to about Elton John in there. Um
you know some steely dan of Billy Joel hasn't put
out an albums, but no kidding, you know, seeing Billy
joelan concert many times. Recent show, he's gonna be the
first one to perform at the first music performer at
our brand new stadium here in Atlanta on Trust Park.
(23:14):
Oh no, I think it's tonight. I think it's happening
very soon, you know as we record this. But um, again,
way off topic. We're not a music show, right but
but but the thing is, um, that switch that you're
talking about, you know, the way that um, you know,
one area decreases activity, another one increases activity. There's something
called inattentional blindness. And I'm saying that the right way.
(23:35):
I hope it not. Yeah, inattentional, it's not unintentional. It's
what does that mean? Well, it means that you can
look at something without really grasping what it is you
can you can look at it and not see it.
So there could be a red light in front of you. Um,
it could be anything like um um, a walker, you know,
someone walking across the road, pedestrian, a bicycle that's on
(23:56):
the on the shoulder. It could be just about anything.
Sign that says merge or wrong way. Oh yeah, well again,
all of these are dangerous if you have this this uh,
this temporary inattentional blindness, right, a temporary lapse and attention
can have lasting effects. So we're we've been talking about
(24:17):
some of the cognitive stuff. Visual manual distractions create that
same kind of let's call it a temporary brain drain,
So it's it's draining activity in one area to give
a little extra oop in the other in the other
parts of your brain. Even though it happens to everyone,
this poses a particular and a heightened danger to newly
(24:38):
licensed teens. In particular for teens is even worse because
this is where it comes back to where saying not
a fully developed adult brain, because uh, you know, when
you're licensed to drive your let's say ballpark fifteen sixteen
years old, Yeah, you know, you permit driving that type
of thing. Some states have like a fourteen year old provision.
But yeah, yeah, they're exceptions here and there. But but
(24:59):
you're young, and the idea is, you know, all the
stuff that we talked about, all these distractions and everything
that happens to everybody, but the undeveloped team brain. I mean,
they they've got a preferntal cortex that doesn't develop are
mature until they're in their mid twenties, so there's a
significant amount of time that they have to wait until
they really have all of their cognitive skills together, you know,
(25:19):
like the whole brain is really working together, firing together
to make all this work, so that there on a
on a level ground, I guess with more mature drivers.
So that's almost a decade of driving before this maturation occurs,
which means not only are younger drivers multitasking more than
(25:42):
previous generations, but they're also not as well equipped to
divide their attention. And of course, neither Scott nor I
are condoning adult drivers multitasking or attention switching, but we
are saying it's even risk skier for teens. So one
in three teens take their eyes off the road when
(26:04):
app notifications come on you know, here's the new what
did you call it? Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and yeah, something
like that. That's that's whatever the kids are holding in
their hands these days. But here's the problem is that
you would think that you could just you know, kind
of give a lecture to your team or your your
new driver and say they don't do that when you're
behind the wheel. It's not a smart thing. Here's all
(26:26):
the statistics, um, you know, it's just not a smart
thing to do. So the question is, ben, where are
they learning this? We will answer that question after a
brief word from our sponsor and we're back. That's right,
(26:49):
As Scott used to say, you pay for the whole seat,
but you only need the edge. So what's going on there?
Where kids learning all these terrible habits from their parents?
It's ns out the teens watch the parents and uh,
and that's where they pick up a lot of these
bad habits. They pick up good habits, but they also
pick up bad habits, and those are the ones that
you want to really focus on, you know, maybe not
(27:12):
doing yourself. When you've got a team that you know,
young impressionable young driver or you know somebody who's almost
of driving age you really want to clean up your
act at that point because they are watching either watching
what you do, they want to be like you, which is,
you know, that's great compliment, but not so great if
you know mom and dad text behind the wheel. So
(27:32):
sure is Here's here's one of the statistics that blew
my mind. So we said earlier top of the show
around there that of teens talk on the phone while
they're driving, one percent of parents do the same thing. Well,
there you go. It proves it right. Teams watch their
parents learn from what they do, they do exactly the
same thing. So the teens that are that are, you know,
(27:54):
children of parents that text, also text themselves. And I
know this feels a little you know, public service announcement
e or whatever. But the science here is interesting because
the multitasking occurs on and off the road. It doesn't
it doesn't matter what you're doing. And I've been going
over and over in my head again and again the
(28:15):
old insult he can't chew gum and walk at the
same time. I think, technically, no one is. It sounds
like our brains are just switching to chew gum, chew gum,
left foot, chew gum, chew gum right foot because it
feels really fast rate. It really does feel like that.
But you know, driving just accentuates this. I mean it
shows you that, you know, driving is not the exact
(28:37):
same thing every time. Like, let's say, okay, you're chewing
gum and walk an example. Sure, I think you can
get away with that because, of course, muscle memory. It
tells you that when you got gum in your mouth,
it's just chew right well. Plus, I'm kind of like
a maverick. I'm a really good walker, Is that right?
I thought maybe I thought maybe the type of gum
YouTube that made you the Maverick's good. Yeah, throwback gum
(28:57):
of some kind. You like fruit stripe or you know
big writers. Oh you remember fruit stripe? Oh yeah, that's
fruit stripe. Worked for about ten seconds that was so
weird or less, and then it was awful. Okay, it
wasn't just me, No, no, no, not. Modern gum has
the ability to hold flavor for so much longer. Kids
just don't know how good they've got a right, So
(29:19):
there are ways to fix this, regardless of how much
gobbledegook might seem involved with the terminology by neuroscience. Yeah,
it's they're they're easy ways. And the first one is
to just be a good example. Not only if you're
a parent teaching a kid, but if you're an older
driver you know, and got a newer driver with you
for some reason like uh, maybe you have a cousin
(29:42):
or you know, a sibling or something closer to your age. Yeah,
then you still can be helpful too. Even if you're
just a passenger. You'd be like, hey, don't kill us. Yeah, yeah,
there's nothing wrong with speaking up when you're in the car,
you know, if something's going wrong. But but again, set
a good example, you know, no matter what your age is. Really,
(30:02):
I mean, because someone is looking up to you as
a role model, or someone is looking at you as
an example of what to do when you're behind the wheels,
So it all makes sense. I mean you really, you
really do need to set that good example. Um, there
are other things that you can do to Ben And
now this one, this one's a this is an interesting
one that you may have to really coerce somebody to
(30:23):
partake in. Really, I think I think I know what
you're gonna say. Well, it's getting to like getting towards
the road rage type situations, you know, where where you
need to maintain a level head. And I would say
that new drivers and experienced drivers alike have problems with this,
with road rage, and that's I don't know if we've
done a road rage episode, but we probably should if
(30:44):
we haven't. Um, but let so you could definitely tag
along a my car because I sometimes experience that. So
I would say that, UM, this is it might be
a tough one, a tough sell in a lot of cases.
But if you can teach somebody or you can talk
somebody into um it's funny as it sounds, meditation or
(31:06):
calming exercises of some kind, or even listening to gentler music,
or maybe you can just maybe think of something calming
or soothing when something like this happens. But you know, UM,
meditation or just you can calming exercises really do help
in a lot of cases. Yeah, and I know this
for a lot of people. I include myself in this group.
(31:27):
Initially this sounds kind of hippie dippy it does. It's like,
what kind of slippery slope is this? Do I need
to start like a Roman therapy and you know bubble baths. No,
you don't need to have like a chime on your
on your wrist watch and you know, put your you know,
your thumb and your forefinger together and go ome or
anything like that. You know, well, you know there there's
(31:48):
certain tricks that you can do to calm yourself down.
And everybody has their own little thing and think of
your mind like a muscle. Yeah, yeah, exactly right, and
you need to relax that sometimes. I mean sometimes it's
just sometimes your blood pressure just goes through the roof
and there are ways to bring that back down and
everybody needs to work on that, and myself included. So
again no soapbox here. I mean, I'm I'm blumping myself
(32:08):
in with everybody else that's angry on the road. Sometimes
it happens. I I had to reluctantly come on board
with this because you know, despite my initial aversion, it
does it does have an impact. There's another one that
your insurance company may also ask you to consider, which
will it could have an effect on rates, you know,
(32:30):
if you're if you're springing for your kids insurance. Um,
but I am not persuaded that these work. What's that
that's the parents kid drive like a driving contract. Oh yeah,
so if if you violate a curfew, say yea driving privilege,
here's the here's the penalty. And if you, um, you know,
(32:51):
you're caught speeding, let's sake, get a speeding ticket, here's
the penalty. And it may be, you know, you lose
your phone privileges for a week or whatever the case
may be. I mean, it could be stronger than that,
even um. But there's there's all kinds of if this
then that situations that are set up on on these
driving contracts, and they're available online. You can just download
them and and work with your family to figure out
(33:12):
what is best for you. Guys. Yeah, it's just a
fill in the blank thing really. I mean, but but
it's a contract that you both sign and you both
agree to and then you know, you post it somewhere
and uh, someone violates one of those those rules and regulations,
the penalty should happen. I mean, that's that's one of
the things you gotta enforce it. I just don't. Yeah,
I mean, it's not it's not a legally binding document.
(33:34):
And also I'm not I'm not persuading, of course, I'm
not in that situation. Yeah, I'm not out here trying
to get kids to sign paperwork really well, what's with
the clipboard? Then? Oh no, no, no, that's uh that's
actually for uh, I've got some ocean front property in Utah.
It was like like you to get in early. Let
(33:55):
me just get my pen here. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah,
a good deal. Yeah. Um, you know there's a There's
one other thing too that we should probably mention, is
that just open communication with if you have a team driver,
and I don't. We're not picking on teens by any means,
but if you have a team driver, open, you know,
open talks about you know, like what they're doing on
the road, is it is It is a great idea.
(34:16):
If they say that they get into a car a
lot of things, you know, with their friends and their
friends are texting. Maybe you have some sage advice that
you can pass on to them, you know, like how
to how to get out of that situation. I know that.
You know, when a lot of us that that would
have teams right now are are we're young enough to
to drive? The distractions were different. They weren't. The phones.
They weren't, you know, the the snapchats that the kids
are using and all that, right, the insta snap you know,
(34:41):
all that stuff. Oh yeah, okay, I'm playing it up
a little bit, but it was different. You know, there
were there were different distractions and we've gone through the
same thing. So you can offer some of that advice
to your team driver. And you know, it's not bad
just to kind of have a back and forth conversation
with someone who's a new driver anyways, because they may
have some questions or concerns that you can answer easily
(35:01):
for them that they've just otherwise they don't have anybody
to go to. Really, yeah, it's worth it. I think.
I think that's very well said Scott. I think that's
a good point. And I have to say, well, we're
looking into this. I realized that I am fascinated by
(35:22):
brain activity for different types of driving, and I want
to know what you think about this, folks. Would it
be would it be worth our time to look into
what goes on in the brain of a race car driver,
because you know, those men and women have such sharp,
fast reaction times, like abnormally higher than the average person.
(35:44):
Have you ever seen there's there's a few, um not studies,
but more like you know, I think that where they train,
you know, when they train drivers because of course they're
they're physical athletes, they have to be. But they also
train them with reaction times. And you know, whether that's
like a drag racer who has to re to you know,
the Christmas tree lights, or if somebody that you know
just simply needs to have quick, quick responses, like an
(36:05):
IndyCar driver or a NASCAR driver. Um, they'll place them
in front of a wall sometimes. I've seen this one example,
like a huge wall with lights on it, and the
idea is that as the lights light, you have to
touch the light as fast as you can. And these
guys are incredible with this, I mean's super fast reaction times. Um.
And then they show you know, somebody else who's not
you know, like maybe let's say it's a you know,
(36:26):
Sunday morning race that's happening. You know, it's like one
of these, um, I don't know, like you know, personal
interest type stories or something, you know, where they highlight
one of the drivers. They focus on the biographyiees. So
they'll do that and then you know, the person that's
there to interview the driver or whatever, we'll give it
a shot and they just fail miserably at the same tests.
So it shows you how sharp the mind is of
(36:46):
these people. And you've gotta wonder if they're using parts
of the brain that we're not using when we drive day.
I have to assume that they are. They must be
with with such I mean just fast, critical decisions are
made just so quick. But but who would have thought that.
You know, there's what five regions of the brain. There
are four or five regions of the brain that are
used just simply making you know, right turn emergency. It's
(37:10):
it's crazy to think about everything that's happening inside your
head all at once. Well, because you drive, you drive
with your whole body, right, You gotta you gotta use
your limbs, you gotta use your senses. You have to
plan ahead. I mean, it's one of the coolest things
that people have ever done. Like the species. Yeah, I
mean it's hand eye foot coordination, and it's thinking, you know,
(37:33):
it's it's uh it's um I guess estimating or guessing
what people are going to do ahead of you. I mean,
there's there's so many things that come into play when
you're driving, and we're all subject to that. It's not
just teens, it's it's mature drivers as well. And uh
man it's just it's just a lot happening there, and
we hope this, uh, this look at some of the
neuroscience has been helpful or at least interesting to Uh.
(37:57):
Now you are armed with some stitute sticks you can
drop in a conversation because Scott one thing we didn't say.
We've got a lot of younger listeners out there too,
So if your parents are getting a little high and mighty,
you can go ahead and let them know that statistically,
they are just as bad, if not worse, in terms
of driving habits. I learned it from watching you mom. Yeah,
(38:18):
say it just like that, Make sure you point your
finger accus it totally. Wasn't that an old commercial? Yeah? Yeah,
it was like a drug commercial or something. I think
it was like a heroin or something. I mean, anti
drug p s A. I think a drug commercialist wasn't
promoting heroin us. I think it was. I think it was,
you know, the opposite, quite the opposite so or something
(38:41):
like that. It was another it was it was an
anti drug commercial. And it's an often quoted line. But yeah,
I suppose in this case texting and driving talking on
the phone they did learn it from watching Mom and
Dad in a lot of cases, and this this episode.
If you found this interesting, there's some other episodes would
like to recommend if you haven't checked them out before.
(39:02):
We did probably one of my favorite topics, if not
the actual episode. We did an episode on taxi drivers
in London. Oh yeah, with the knowledge? Yeah what is
the knowledge? All the knowledge? The knowledge is a test
that all London taxi drivers have to take. Right, and
you include me into this, so this is your is
your thing, but I know of it now because of
(39:23):
the episode. But it's it grows the brain. The brain
physically grows after you take this tester while you're learning
to take this test, because it is it's probably the
most intense test that anybody would have to take anywhere. Really.
I mean, it's well, okay, driving for driving, maybe that's
I have to qualify that with her driving, but um,
but it's really complex because they're traditionally not allowed to
(39:48):
have a map with them or GPS. They simply have
to no a vast amount of London's roads and the
areas routes to take depending on changing traffic conditions. So
it's not just like what's the fastest way to get
between this point and that point. Yeah, it's give me
(40:09):
five routes that go between here and there and which
one is best at three pm on a Sunday, considering
there's a game or something like that, and you have
to learn that for the entire city and for every time,
and knowing all the events that happened. It's just it's
it's it's an unbelievably complex taster or quizz you have
to take in order to become a London taxi driver.
So those guys and girls know their stuff, and what
(40:31):
the what the studies found this is so weird. This
is real mind over matter stuff. What they found was
after a certain amount of time driving as a cab driver,
after passing the knowledge and operating as a as a
black cab driver, then these people would have, as Scott said,
physically larger regions of the brain associated with spatial reasoning.
(40:54):
Their thoughts actually changed the physical world in the strangest way.
So you can check out that episode for more neuroscience
as it interacts with the automotive world, and then a
couple others that you might want to check out, depending
on which side of the driving age war you're on,
would be our previous episodes on the driving age limit
(41:20):
on both ends. Yeah, sixteen two young or is it?
Is it just right? I mean a lot of people
feel that again with what we've described here today, that
you know, maybe you're just not exactly ready. Your brain
is not exactly ready for that type of responsibility yet. Yeah,
And and at what age should there be a mandatory
age to remove someone's driving privileges? That was an interesting episode.
I remember we got a lot of feedback on that
(41:42):
from you know, adults and and kids are just to drive.
So even there were even some you know, i'll say
some youngsters, uh that wrote in and said, you know,
I kind of understand what they're saying. I mean, maybe
it's not the time to drive it. Maybe maybe i'd
I'd be able to make better, more mature decisions if
we were to wait a little bit later in life,
(42:03):
let's say the driving age became one instead of right. Yeah,
and it's a good question. You can find all those shows,
along with every show Scott and I have ever done,
on our website car Stuff show dot com, and of
course you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. Please
don't look while you're driving, and good advice face and
(42:23):
one last thing, all of our best ideas for topics
come from you, not in general, you you specifically. So
if you have an idea for us something we should
cover an upcoming episode that you think your fellow listeners
want to hear, let us know. You can email us directly.
We are car stuff at how stuff works dot com.
(42:46):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, this
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think, send an email to podcast that how stuff
works dot com
CarStuff News
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Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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