by Ginger Betzer

Created on: July 13, 2008   Last Updated: February 15, 2009

Remember the days when driving time was thinking time? Crazy statements were made like "I'm going for a drive to cool off" or "I need a road to trip to clear my head". Sorry, friend, but those days are over thanks to radio, I-pod, cell phones, car cd and dvd players. Even in our cars we are bombarded with noise, irritations and distractions. Thinking is out of the question when we have an array of entertainment at our finger tips. It actually takes a great deal of maneuvering to keep things going. Do you know how incredibly skillful one has to be to listen to weather reports, talk on a cell phone, download music and sip a starbucks while listening to on-star about which turn to make to find your daughters school friends' birthday party. It's a miracle. I know why so many people seem to be claiming adult onset attention deficit disorder. We seem to think this in normal. God forbid the soccer moms who does all the above and still have time to scream instructions at their 2.5 kids in soccer gear fighting in the back seat.

While I'm still trying to deal with all this, there are some people that seem to think that our new technology includes an invisiblity force shield around their cars. These are the people that keep your kids busiest on road trips. Wake up all you "NO ONE CAN SEE YOU THROUGH THE CLEAR GLASS IN YOUR CAR WINDOWS" people. These are the people who pick their noses, sing flamboyantly without reserve and try to put on make-up and comb their hair while driving. Even if they glance over and see that you're watching them pull something long and stringy out of their nostril they just look back and keep picking. It's weird. And don't those crooners mouthing words with twisted facial expressions realize that they appear to others to be talking to themselves. Not really. Yeah, these delusional people don't really care. The car is their reality, and the fellow drivers on the road are mere reruns of a past encounter.

Probably the most dangerous car behavior is the stop light sleepers. Someone must have given them the wrong description of a power nap. So you're sitting at a stop light and look over at the driver next to you who has tilted his/her head against the seat, nose in air, actually snoring. Honestly, I've seen it. When the light changes..VOILA, instant alarm in the form of honks coming from the drivers behind. The scary thing is that sometimes they sleep drive. No, it is an actual occurrence. My X-husband use to do this. His claim was that he had driven the route to and from so often that he didn't need to be actually awake.

Yes people engage in lots of activity while driving a motor vehicle. I don't condone it in the least, but sometimes it's hard to know where to draw the line. When the cell phone laws are past in my state that will resolve some of the chaos. It's awfully hard to legislate nose picking activities. And I'm sure the future will bring an array of other activities that can coincide with driving. Of course, with gas rising to four dollars a gallon, I may just have to do some of my activities from my home.

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