universal search? sorry but the search engine on specific things is allright... i don't get it..
find / * is what comes in my mind when i think about universal searching

I know. I'm a little astonished by the number of people in forums who freely talk about how they need a one-hand device so they can text and drive. How shamelessly self-serving can you be? The studies are showing now that people who text and drive, drive worse than drunk drivers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/te...istracted.html

Yeah, but you have to admit texting with two hands while driving is a lot more dangerous! :-)

More importantly is to be able to use the phone one-handed while holding onto part of the bus or train, or if you are carrying shopping in one hand, or in my case at the moment, a crutch.

Text-driving is not dangerous because it uses 1 or 2 of your hands. It diverts you attention (i.e. your mind and concentration) from your windscreen to you mobile device's screen. 1 or 2 hands, doesn't really matter, either is still very dangerous.

I agree, but the same holds for changing the radio channel or volume, or putting another CD in, or more recently changing whatever your iPod/whatever is playing through the car speakers.

Should they be banned because they distract too? Are there any studies on the effect of those things?

I've seen some road safety compaigners say you should always have both hands on the steering wheel - at all times. Did they forget about changing gear?! :-) But seriously, there's lots of distracting things in a car to fiddle with from time to time - heaters, air con, radio/music, lights. It's clear some things are worse than others for safety, and layout of controls and displays matters too.

I suspect what sets texting particularly apart is having to look at the screen and keypad for longer, in an inconvenient position, and a tendancy to look at them a bit longer than, say, the radio's buttons, because that's what we tend do when thinking how to write something in a text. Well, I'm (ahem) talking from (rare) personal experience there.

But on the other hand, I don't see how texting when you're stationary at a red light can be dangerous (above a marginal level). If you haven't finished when it turns green, just put the phone down before setting off, and pick it up again at the next red light to continue.

Talking with someone in the passenger seat doesn't particularly a safety problem. That's distracting but doesn't take away from the visual field & perception, and hand controls - as long as you're not one of those people who have to turn your head and look at the person next to you each time you talk!! I know some people are fine driving while talking to a passenger, and some people find it too distracting and have to ask their passengers not to talk to them.

The point of saying that is it also varies by person, what kinds of multi-tasking they can do, and how they go about it (turn their head or not when talking, and in the case of texting, whether they do it in the middle of moving traffic or when stopped).

Talking with someone on a hand-free phone kit is worse, because the remote person doesn't know to pause when you have to give extra attention to the road and resume afterwards.

LOL!

To start off, I strongly agree; holding a phone two-handed while driving is dangerous. You'd think to use it whilst sitting in a passenger seat or public transport. Even holding the phone with one hand (Whilst driving) is considerably dangerous. I personally don't think (As 'jjx' has said before) texting while at a stop or red light can be dangerous.

Next, it's the people who don't take this seriously who end up paying fines, or even getting injured.

Lastly, I recommend using 'loud speaker' or a 'wireless blue tooth device' while driving as this takes a reasonable risk percentage away.

I think they've pretty much shown at this point that texting and driving is on a plane all by itself. As I noted above, multiple studies have shown people drive better when they're drunk, than when they're texting.

Sure there are other distractions in a car, but that doesn't mean all distractions are equal. That's just a slippery slope argument. It's not just about keeping you eyes on the road and what you're doing with your hands. The biggest distraction is the cognitive disruption. When you're talking on the phone or texting, you're absorbed in a conversation that's going on elsewhere. Your mind is literally elsewhere. And the other party doesn't know when to pause or stop (like a passanger in the car would), so you just keep talking or texting too, regardless of what's going on on the road. This is why studies also show that hands free headsets do nothing to improve driving ability, over holding a handset to your ear. But texting has the double whammy of a huge cognitive disruption and taking your eyes off the road for extended and repeated periods of time.

The organizations that make the "but what's the difference between that and tuning the radio" argument are basically the cell phone industry, truck driver organizations, people's whose livelihoods are effected by cell phone laws. Nobody else is making this argument.

As far as multi-tasking goes, the same studies have basically shown that in reality no-one multi-tasks well. It's basically a myth. People think they can and some people fake it better. But when people multi-task studies have found that their performance at both tasks plummets rapidly. It's pretty much universal for all people. We've just deluded ourselves as a culture by idolizing multi-tasking as somehow the pinnacle of productivity, when it's the opposite.

I can no longer safely txt and drive. Getting old sucks.