Trying to put a label on the freeway behavior that infuriates me most. You are on a freeway going 40mph or so The rightmost lane you are passing to the left is bumper-to-bumper. Self-absorbed reclined driver on phone with just left hand - fully extended on steering wheel at twelve-o'clock, jerks it to nine-o-clock. Their vehicle instantly bolts in front of you, possibly causing you to slam the brakes. Anyone else suffered this?
I find this more a problem on surface streets than on the freeway. On the street, drivers seem to have more opportunities to suddenly change their mind about what they want to do or where they want to go. Why they insist on carrying on a conversation while parking, changing lanes, etc is beyond me...multitasking nonsense. In my (newly) relaxed driving mode on the freeway I find it not too bad being behind someone having a good long yak fest on their cell--they typically drive a pretty even slow speed, as if on cruise control.
A number of years ago, I suffered with a boss that loved to tell us we had to multitask....and always made sure the load was enough to "crash" us - classic Dilbert material. Wonder why he got retired? Most computers have one CPU, meaning like humans they can only do one thing at a time. Too many tasks and things are done slower than if they were done one or two at a time. A lot of people insist it's not so until they fly thru the windshield.
Several issues ago, Scientific American did a special "brain" issue. Apparently, the 1990s was the "brain decade" and there were all sorts of brain studies conducted. One of the things they proved beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the human brain is not an efficient multi-tasker. If you think of your brain as a pie and each task as slices of that pie you understand that the more tasks you take on, the lower is your ability to focus on any of them at any given time. You might be able to drive and you might be able to talk but you can not do both with 100% capacity at the same time. Has anyone caught themselves unconsciously turning down the radio when they are looking for a house address?
What makes humans less capable of multitasking than computers is the need to spend time to recall (or get briefed) on tasks.
Yes! The radio is almost always on when I drive but I'm hardly ever paying attention to it. Once in a while I'll try to do something more involved, like finding that house address or figuring out which exit I'm supposed to be taking, and I'll suddenly get this "annoyed" feeling about the noise coming out of the speakers. If I don't turn it down or off it drives me nuts.
And that typical 12:00 fist position on the wheel has got to be the *most* unstable one possible. Weight of arm bearing down, as soon as the wheel starts to turn the force increases. So the sudden jerk is routine for these people, and winds up feeling correct probably because that's the way the car always responds to them. What amuses me the most about people who drive with that hand position is how they have to keep MOVING that hand away to check the instruments sightlined through the top of the wheel. Duh. If they did the 10 and 2 or 3 and 9 or resting on the hub and spokes like I do, they wouldn't have that problem. . _H*
