celphones was Why not methanol 4869fbloogyudsr I don't ski, but I also don't text message while driving in adverse conditions. I don't text message in city traffic. I do text message from the right lane, going the same speed...
You are deluding yourself in your belief because "I have done it." Yes, you have done it, but not in situations where driving demands your undivided attention. For instance, if you were skiing down a 45-50 degree slope of the "you fall, you die" type, would you be text- messaging all your friends?
Your problem is that you (and other cell-phone users) don't recognize that driving is a concentrate or die situation, too. Granted, it's not always a task that requires 100% concentration, but neither does skiing.
Try this: toss a dozen or so pennies down on a table. Now count them. You will use a technique called "chunking" to do so. Note that the largest "chunk" your mind is able to see is 4. That's right, four. If you put 5 pennies down on a table, you have to count 4+1=5. This fact about the limitations of the human mind is well-proven. There are other well-known limitations; I saw an article just a month ago or so proving that working in a time-share environment, a human is much less effective than one-task-at-a-time mode.
Daniel has spent quite some time in human factors (related to visual recognition). I dabble in all this cognitive psych stuff because I'm a teacher (as is my wife) and computer scientist with a lot of experience in CAI. It's obvious from your postings that you don't know what you're talking about. Put down the phone, or some time you'll die.
Floyd
