Usually, when you\u2019re driving, the two halves of the brain can get on pretty well.\u00a0 The left-hand side makes the decision about where you\u2019re going to go and why you need to go there, and keeps track of the road rules.\u00a0 The right-hand side monitors what\u2019s going on around you and tells you to make all those minor adjustments on the brake, accelerator and steering wheel.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve been driving a manual for a long time, the right-hand brain will also handle gear changes; if you\u2019re new to manual gears, the left-hand brain will manage a lot of this until the movements become automatic and the right brain can do them.\u00a0 We call this \u201cdoing it without thinking\u201d, which is a bit of an insult to the right brain, which thinks in a different way.<\/p>\n If you are driving along without much outside input \u2013 down a familiar road in moderate traffic, for example \u2013 the left side of your brain doesn\u2019t have a lot to do and it allows your right brain to dominate.\u00a0 Your right brain is busy with the driving and the left brain will happily let it dominate. While it\u2019s dominating, your right brain can also get creative and all those interesting, quirky daydreams can come bubbling up, with the left brain playing a supporting role.<\/p>\n However, if you\u2019re talking on the phone, the left brain is dominating, what with having to process the words coming in and possibly making decisions at the same time. Unlike the right brain, the left brain is a bit of a bully and a drama queen, and it won\u2019t let the right brain have much of a say if it\u2019s busy.<\/p>\n So there you are, talking on the car phone and your left brain is in full command.\u00a0 Right brain can perceive an upcoming hazard \u2013 that slow driver who hits the brakes heaps ahead of you, for example, or a busy intersection. \u00a0But the left brain, busily engaged in processing words and making decisions, tells the right brain to shut up. It\u2019s not until the right brain starts screaming at the right brain that the left brain drops command and lets the right brain do what it needs to by managing what it can see and the spatial relationships (i.e. what\u2019s around you and how close you are to it or if you\u2019re on a collision course).\u00a0 It all happens within seconds, but that switch from left-dominated to right-dominated does slow your reaction time.<\/p>\n So why doesn\u2019t somebody talking in the car to you distract you like a phone does? Simply because the other person has two sides to their brain and their own right brains telling them about how fast you\u2019re both approaching the intersection or that slow driver ahead of you, and the emotional\/relationship nous to back off from the conversation.\u00a0 Someone on a phone doesn\u2019t have that right-brain input at that time, so he\/she will keep yakking regardless.<\/p>\n A lot of modern active safety systems attempt to replicate what your right brain does: detecting upcoming problems and taking action.<\/p>\n This is a very simple overview of your amazing brain and the highly complex processes that go on when you\u2019re behind the wheel. \u00a0Some people are more right-brain than others; some people can switch from left to right quickly.\u00a0 But even this little glimpse should give you an idea of why cell phones, car phones and too many road signs are so distracting. http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/about.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever wondered why sometimes, when you\u2019re just driving for a long time, some of your best daydreams seem to just bubble up out of nowhere?\u00a0 Or have you ever wondered why it is that talking on a hand-held phone is so distracting to a driver, even though you\u2019ve got your eyes and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11910,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions\/11910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Mercedes-Right-Left\"](\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Mercedes-Right-Left-1024x724.jpg\")
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