Found a couple of articles online rather educational kinda long hope ya dont mind

 

EVERY DRIVER IS DISTRACTED SOME OF THE TIME, STUDY SHOWS
All drivers -- yes, every one of them -- engage in some kind of distracting activity while they are driving, according to research funded by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and performed by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center. And while cell phones are the distraction people love to hate, other distractions were far more prevalent and could be more hazardous.
In the first such study of its kind, researchers used in-car video cameras to see how drivers behaved when they were behind the wheel of their own cars. The tapes showed that distraction is an everyday occurrence: Over three hours of driving, all of the drivers were distracted at some point, 90% by something outside the car and 100% by something inside the vehicle.
The following chart shows the percentage of drivers who engaged in the most common distracting activities while driving:

% of Subjects % of Total Time
Reaching, leaning, etc 97.1 3.8
Manipulating music/audio controls 91.4 1.4
Eating, drinking, etc. 71.4 4.6
Conversing 77.1 15.3
Grooming 45.7 0.3
Passenger 44.4 0.9
Reading or writing 40.0 0.7
Using cell phone 30.0 1.3
Smoking 7.1 1.6
“We found that people do adjust their behavior to a certain extent,” says Peter Kissinger, President of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. “They have a tendency to do potentially distracting things while their car is stopped.” Overall, vehicles were stopped an average of 15.3% of the time they were in use, yet 70% of reading and writing, 34% of grooming, and 25% of cell phone use occurred while the vehicle was not moving.
“Around a quarter of all traffic crashes are caused by distractions, which annually account for 1.2 million incidents,” Kissinger says. “People often underestimate the seriousness of distractions because not every distraction leads to a crash. But if you are distracted just when someone pulls out in front of you, your lack of attention can be catastrophic.”
Research performed by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety can be found at http://www.aaafoundation.org/resourc...utton=research . The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is an independent, publicly funded, 501 (c)(3) charitable research and educational organization that was established in 1947 by the American Automobile Association. The AAA Foundation’s mission is to prevent traffic deaths and injuries by conducting research into their causes and by educating the public about strategies to prevent crashes.
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CARS, NOT GUNS, OUR MOST LETHAL WEAPONS
Lots of drivers kill other drivers. Or pedestrians. Or pets. But as long as they do it with a motor vehicle of some kind -- even a Hummer, which falls somewhere between an automobile and a behemoth -- they rarely get charged with anything worse than criminal negligence. Many get away with a simple traffic fine or impaired driving charge.
That may be changing. In Alaska, Erwin Petterson Jr. has been charged with second-degree murder. Two years ago, while on a three-hour drive from Kenai to Anchorage, he swerved across the centreline of the highway and hit a southbound vehicle. Both occupants of the other vehicle were killed.
Alaska state troopers claim Petterson and his passenger, Douglas Scott, were distracted by watching a DVD movie -- ironically, "Road Trip."
In Alaska, it's illegal to have dashboard television. But laws, as always, lag behind new technologies, so nothing prevents owners from installing dashboard DVD players, or prevents manufacturers from producing them.
A DISTRACTION BY ANY OTHER NAME...
Petterson insists he was just listening to a music CD on the DVD player. He says he just looked away from the road to reach for a can of pop.
I don't see why it should make a difference what he was doing. My research suggests that up to 50 per cent of all auto accidents result from distractions. If it's not the built-in distractions -- makeup mirrors, cup holders, and adjustments for the radio, the air-conditioning, or the on-board computer -- then it's cell-phones, undisciplined pets, or chatty passengers.
If it distracts the driver from driving safely, it doesn't belong in a car.
There's nothing illegal about having a DVD player in a car. Or even a fully stocked liquor cabinet and bar. As long as it stays in the back seat.
The manufacturers of dashboard DVD players provide an interlock that should prevent it from operating while the vehicle is moving. However, people who install their own equipment can, and usually do, bypass the interlock.
Petterson did. He also installed a Sony Play Station 2 and speakers appropriate for a home theatre. In a pickup truck.
As the victims' son commented, if he wasn't planning to use them while driving, why would he go to all that expense?
MARKERS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
A personal aside -- I love these small news stories that rarely make the main headlines, the off-beat and eccentric events newsrooms use to balance the usual dismal litany of bombings and beheadings.
I was once interviewed for religion editor at the Globe and Mail. The paper's managing editor said he wanted more "hard news" in religion coverage -- "hard" meaning factual events.
I lost the job when I argued that in religion, hard news is meaningless. A church official makes a statement -- so what? The significant stuff shows up in the "soft" news -- hints about changes in thinking patterns, in understandings, that can rarely be pinned down to a specific time and place.
Erwin Petterson's trial is one of those soft news stories that may mark a subtle shift in our understanding of personal responsibility.
From what I hear, it's the first time someone has been charged with murder for failing to pay proper attention while driving a car.
LETHAL WEAPONS
Both north and south of the border, controversy flares over gun control. But in fact, the most lethal weapon we have is not the gun, but the automobile.
In Canada, fewer than 1000 people a year die from gunshot wounds (including suicides). About 3,000 die in motor vehicle accidents, and another 225,000 are injured, some permanently.
Yet we turn almost anyone loose with one of these weapons, with minimal training. In no other situation would we consider it safe to have two-ton objects zip past within arms-length at 200 km/hr. Yet that happens routinely on two-lane highways.
We would never trust a nervous teenager with a bomb, or put the trembling finger of a confused grandmother on the trigger of an AK-47. Yet a runaway car crashing into a crowded café will do the same kind of damage as a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv or Baghdad.
Meanwhile, manufacturers devise new toys to distract drivers from their primary task of driving safely.
I recently replaced a malfunctioning car radio. The new unit sounds wonderful. But it has such teeny-tiny control buttons that I have to look away from the road to change stations. That doesn't enhance safety.
General Motors adds voice interruptions from its On-Star service. And BMW's justly-maligned Idrive system expects drivers to select on a tiny computer screen the functions that they will see on their instrument panels.
Under those circumstances, driving takes a back seat to fiddling with controls.
EQUAL TO DRIVING WHILE IMPAIRED
Thanks to seat belts, airbags, and a crackdown on drinking and driving, auto fatalities in Canada have steadily dropped. Canada now has over 17 million passenger vehicles on the roads. But over the last 20 years, the number of fatalities declined by almost 50 per cent.
However, the greed of accessory manufacturers and the gullibility of drivers has started reversing that gain.
Personally, I'd like to see all accessories, of any kind, banned unless the manufacturer can show, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this gimmick will enhance safety. Automatic transmissions do, for example. So do anti-lock brake systems, and headlights that swivel to follow the road on corners. DVD players and multi-megawatt sound systems do not. Nor, for that matter, do vanity mirrors, cigarette lighters, and on-board fax machines.
I think that if the police pull over a car, for any reason, and find equipment that could distract a driver's attention, or whose safety provisions have been tampered with, they should have just as much right to impound the car and fine the driver as they would if that driver were impaired.
Because the result is same. A car is potentially a lethal weapon. It should be treated that way.
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The guy in Alaska was found Not Guilty.

 

not the point