Car Companies Vie for Supremacy in Distracted Driving Arms Race

In the distraction arms race, it is not entirely clear who is to blame: Detroit or Main Street … The sad truth is, distracting technologies also help to sell cars. If you’re a manufacturer, cars are all about profit — in fact, automobile companies have a fiduciary responsibility to make a profit. Until consumers demand otherwise, we need to get ready for a lot of new 21st century cup holders. For those of us who spend our days working to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads, that’s an ominous sign.

Why does the consumer want these things? Because they’re bored out of their minds. That’s why. Driving sucks.

We’ve engineered our entire transportation system around an activity which requires increasing amounts of unproductive time, unless you are distracted. Driving is time spent between what you were doing and what you want or need to do next. It steals hours of our lives we’ll never get back. Too many people have all but forgotten it’s a task that actually requires attention. But that’s not hard to do. What with the highway engineers enabling mindless driving and the car companies supplying distractions.