Monday, May 29, 2006

Distracting drivers in Japan

Back to Japan for a minute. One thing about that country that I find surprising is the very common use of quite large in-dash LCD screens for GPS navigation, but also watching TV or DVDs.

You would think that this would be dangerous and distracting for the driver, but I have been in so many different cars in which the TV or a DVD has been on, I presume there is no Japanese traffic law against it.

It seems that it is blamed for some accidents, and that is hardly surprising. In New South Wales, the situation is like this:

..driving with a TV/VDU (visual display unit) visible to the driver carries the same penalty as mobile use: $225 and three demerit points. Factory-installed DVD players/TV screens in cars that are dash-mounted typically switch off when the vehicle is in motion.

If drivers in Australia were allowed to watch TV, I wonder which shows would cause the most accidents.

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