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Most parents, if they are honest, can tell some pretty startling tales on themselves — and the bad child-care decisions they have made on occasion. And then there's the busy mom in Dayton, Ohio. She was not just breast-feeding her baby, whom she had pushed against the steering wheel. She was also talking on a hand-held cellphone — all the while driving on rain-slick roads.
A passing motorist called police, who tracked the woman down. They could not ticket her for a driving infraction, since they had not seen it. But after the woman admitted she had been breast-feeding, she was charged with child endangerment.
While much of the concern around distracted driving has focused on cellphones and texting, motorists engage in many other distracting activities. Among the most common that are cited by safety-oriented websites:
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Adjusting the car stereo
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Reading a map, book or newspaper
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Putting on makeup
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Shaving
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Combing or brushing hair
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Reaching for an object on the floor, backseat or elsewhere
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Looking at something on the side of the road
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Eating, drinking or smoking
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Talking to children in the backseat, or passing objects to them.
Experts note that not all these activities are equally distracting.
“There's a huge difference between someone who's eating a banana versus someone who tried to dip sushi in soy sauce and mix it just right with ginger,” says Justin McNaull, director of state relations at the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. A 2011 poll found that most adults who drive regularly admit to engaging in distracting behaviors, including 86 percent of Americans who say they eat and drink while driving. Large numbers of respondents also admitted to inattentive driving habits, such as driving after having two or more drinks or driving while feeling sleepy and even briefly dozing off.
Cellphones and texting are not the only distracting activities by drivers. (Patrick Rothfuss)
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“The number of drivers who engage in potentially dangerous, in some cases extremely dangerous, behaviors while driving is terrifyingly high,” said Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll. “While we have some information on how dangerous some of these behaviors are … we can only speculate as to the numbers of accidents and deaths that are caused by the many millions of people who drive while setting their GPS, eating or drinking, surfing the Internet, watching videos, combing their hair, reading or applying makeup.”
In addition to the common types of distracting behavior, some are, simply, mind-boggling. Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher wrote about three motorists on I-95 driving at about 65 mph while engaging in unexpected activities. One was engrossed in a novel perched against the top of his steering wheel, a second had rigged a laptop on the dashboard so he could watch a movie and a third kept his thighs pressed against the steering wheel for stability while leaning forward and playing a trumpet.
Fisher invited readers to submit examples they had witnessed of distracted drivers. Among the more bizarre:
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A man driving at highway speed with a can of beer in one hand and a fried chicken leg in the other
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A driver scratching off lottery tickets
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A woman knitting, steering with her elbows
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A driver holding a cellphone in one hand and taking pictures of other cars with a camera in the other hand while driving at 70 mph
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A driver looking through a camcorder viewfinder videotaping nearby monuments
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A truck driver sharing a bag of sunflower seeds with a blue-and-gold macaw perched on the steering wheel
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A woman putting on pantyhose while driving in rush hour traffic
“As astonishing and frightening as such sights can be on the highway, I feel obliged to report that all three of these fellas [on I-95] were driving fairly well,” Fisher wrote. “The swervers and drifters I encountered on this trip were all — every single one of them — deeply engrossed in cell conversations.”
— David Hosansky
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