Watching people gesture and pose as they talk on cell phones as if the person they’re speaking with can see them, it’s clear to me that areas of the visual cortex come into play when people use the phone. Put simplistically, you’ve got X amount of gray-matter RAM, and a certain portion of it is given over to visualization (real and imagined). As people seem to imagine the person they’re speaking to on the phone (there are probably good evolutionary reasons for this), some of the space given over to direct visual perception is being occupied.
Now put that in a car and watch it go all over the road. We’re good at registering motion, but when things aren’t moving we tend to regard the situation as static. The visual input is cached (I’m still being metaphorical, okay?). The brain feels it’s okay not to pay attention too closely right now because nothing’s moving toward it, nothing’s threatening.
In a nutshell this is why I think talking on the phone while driving is a Bad Idea. It’s also why I think that “hands-free” laws for talking on the phone while driving don’t address the underlying hazard: It isn’t the hands being occupied that’s dangerous (though certainly it comes into play); what’s dangeous is the mind being occupied. It doesn’t happen when a passenger’s in the car because you don’t have to picture him; he’s right there beside you, gesturing back at you.
I’d be interested to see the results of brain scans of people talking on phones (of course, god knows what happens when you introduce a cell phone into that — surely there’s some way to get around it). I think the results would bear out my wacky little pet theory that the visual cortex is engaged. Then I’d have sound, scientific reasons why people should hang the hell up and pay attention.
If someone wants to wrap himself around a lightpole, that’s his business, and we can at least be thankful if it happens before he can pee in the gene pool. But when someone’s distraction threatens to put me into a lightpole, I take it personally. I’m funny like that.
I’m off to Podcamp in Phoenix tomorrow morning. Looking forward to presenting and attending some presentations as well! After I’m back I can’t wait to write about last week’s La Jolla Writer’s Conference, which was simply amazing.