Book Review: A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age (2015). Matt Richtel.

This morning, I read an excellent opinion piece from yesterday's New York Times by Jay Caspian Kang, entitled "Touch Screens in Cars Solve a Problem We Didn't Have".  It describes the evolutionary design process by which for most new cars today, the designers have replaced the old familiar knobs and buttons that were simple to find and easy to use for controlling all the car's environmental systems, with ever larger touch screens that require the same sort of complex viewing, touching and menu-searching we have to do with our phones.

In the article, Mr. Kang argues that not only did we not need these new solutions to how to control the heat, air conditioning and sound systems in our cars, but in fact these screens have created a major new safety problem, by creating an array of new distractions that take our eyes off the road and our minds off the task of driving, while we search for little icons and  hard-to-find virtual buttons, and page through menus of options to try to manage our cars' systems and environment.

With this in mind, today I'm posting a short review of the 2015 book A Deadly Wandering, also by a New York Times writer, which is the brilliantly told, gripping and emotional account of one of the early cases of a fatal automobile accident caused by a teenager texting while driving. 

The author weaves a spellbinding story, as he cycles the narration between the personalities and lives affected by the accident, the psychologists working on trying to understand the brain and the science of attention, and the political and legal players trying to adjust and respond to new distracting technologies as they affect drivers and the public interest.   

One of the most important points the book drives home is what the scientific research has shown about how long it takes our conscious minds to return to fully and effectively doing what they were doing before (such as driving the car and being road-aware) after changing focus to send a text, or otherwise engage in some computer-related activity.  The numbers are sobering: in the case of Mr. Kang's article this morning, the figure he quoted for the new touch screens was 40 seconds.  That's a long time to have nobody driving your car while it's in motion.

A Deadly Wandering is a crucial book for all of us as drivers, to understand what we risk in trying to operate our phones (or our touch screens) while we're driving.  It ought to be required reading for automobile designers and manufacturers, and government safety regulators as well.  Highly recommended.