I had the pleasure of riding in the passenger seat the other day while my wife drove the car. I was watching the scenery go by and puzzling with a problem I was solving. That’s when I realized I was having the exact same kind of thoughts that I have when I am the one doing the driving.
It wouldn’t bother me, except I was paying attention to the drive itself every 15 seconds or so and losing myself in my own thoughts the rest of the time. Does this happen to everyone, I asked myself?
I turned to Sofia, who is a better driver than me, and I asked, “What do you think about when you drive?”
She gave me one of those looks that said, are you asking me one of your silly questions again? She said, “Well, right now I was thinking about how we could rearrange the living room so we could fit the little cabinet beside the television.”
“Do you do that all the time?”
“Do what?”
“Think about other stuff while you’re driving instead of thinking about driving.”
“Well of course I think about…”
I noticed movement. “Watch out for that rabbit!”
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For a few seconds she held our lives in a precarious balance as my wife deftly whipped the car to the right, moving onto the shoulder and bypassing the stunned creature that apparently had decided to end it all by committing suicide on our lovely highways.
“What else do you think about?” I asked a few seconds later.
“Well, I think about the kids, and what they are going to need for school this year. You know your oldest needs new shoes, and…”
“You just missed your turn.”
Sofia muttered something unrepeatable and stopped at a light in order to turn around in a pharmacy parking lot. “Well, if you wouldn’t keep distracting me…”
“I’m not distracting you, I’m just talking. We talk every time we go out together. I’m just wondering if people’s thoughts during a drive distract them from driving.”
“Of course I think about my driving. But I also think about other things as well. Everybody drives along and thinks. I have a destination in mind, and, as I go toward it, I see landmarks that tell me that I’m going in the right direction, and I steer around the things that get in my way. But at the same time, the things I see out the window, hear on the radio or that my husband says makes me think of things as well. But we’re smart enough to deal with those things, even while driving on autopilot. You know, Andrew, sometimes it seems to me that you…”
Suddenly the guy that had been waiting behind us at the light honked his horn to let my wife know that she was keeping him from getting home.
She shook her head and pulled into the parking lot before coming to a full stop.
She turned to me and said, “I’d drive a lot better if the distractions were coming from outside of this vehicle.”
Sheesh, ask a simple question…