On driver distraction, the ‘eyes’ have it

There is disagreement among researchers about how significant a problem mind-off-the-road is, but everyone agrees it's a good idea to look where you're going.

Keeping one's attention trained entirely on operating the vehicle is asking too much of the average person, research suggests. Racecar drivers can stay focused, but the rest of us generally have something else on our minds while we're tooling down the highway.

That particular state of affairs on our roadways, and in our minds, causes less worry for Ford driver distraction expert Louis Tijerina than it might for the average person. Were it not for hard data supporting his attitude, he might not have arrived at this seemingly counterintuitive view of the matter.