High-Tech Invitations Take Your Mind Off Road

By BILL VLASIC Published: February 12, 2008

DETROIT — Drivers have never had so many distractions tempting them to take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel.

Talking on cellphones and typing text messages while driving has already led to bans in many states. But now auto companies, likening their latest models to living rooms on the road, are turning cars into cocoons of communication systems and high-tech entertainment. Some drivers are packing their car interiors with G.P.S. navigation screens, portable DVD players and even computer keyboards and printers.

State Senator Carl L. Marcellino of New York learned this firsthand while riding in a cab in Miami — the driver was watching a boxing match on a television mounted on the dashboard. “I can understand a monitor in the rear, but up front it is a different world,” said Mr. Marcellino, who sponsored a bill last year to ban all “display generating devices” in the driver’s view. New York already has a law against TV sets in the front seat. The driver shouldn’t be doing anything other than driving,” Mr. Marcellino said.

Motorists have always engaged in risky behavior, whether it is eating a sandwich, arguing with a spouse, applying makeup or studying a map while speeding down the interstate. But safety experts say the influx of electronics is turning cars into sometimes chaotic — and distracting — moving family rooms.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 80 percent of vehicle crashes and 65 percent of close calls are caused in part by driver distraction.

And some devastating accidents have drawn further attention to the dangers. Last June, five teenage girls were driving to a vacation home in upstate New York when their sport utility vehicle crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer, killing all of them.

The police later learned from phone records that the driver had been typing text messages on her phone just before she swerved out of her lane. Toxicology tests ruled out alcohol and drugs as possible causes. The rise in distraction-related accidents is chilling to auto-safety advocates who typically study air bags and rollovers.

Nick Bunkley and Mary M. Chapman contributed reporting.