madcorgi

Last December I bought a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee that has nav, voice commanded bluetooth, rear parking camera, and a big stereo. I do a LOT of driving in my businesses--23K miles so far in less than a year. The Jeep is my rolling office; I use the nav constantly, and am on the phone a lot. My previous DD was an '89 944S2, which had none of these things.

My wife and daughter have both commented that my driving is markedly worse in the Jeep than it has been previously. My daughter was following me the other night, and she said I she could tell when I was on the phone because I slowed way down. When I'm on the phone while the nav lady is yakking directions, it's really bad. I never listen to the radio or stereo any more--that's just too much more sensory overload.

I remember reading somewhere that during the Vietnam war, we came up with all kinds of warnings, beeps and buzzers for SAMS and other threats to pilots. In the study I read about, it was discovered that the majority of the pilots turned those warnings off, because they were too distracting. They preferred to just fly the damn plane.

I have a theory that the amount of multi-tasking that modern cars enable simply overwhelms most drivers, which accounts for a lot of the increasingly bizarre behavior I'm seeing--and apparently doing myself--on the highways today.

I should add that I'm a reasonably fair driver, and that when I get in the '88 911 for a spin, or drive on the race track, no such weirdness ensues.

Anybody else notice this in themselves?