The High-Techway

For our story on high-tech cars (see Seen/Heard/Tried), I took a 2005 Acura RL for a half-day joyride around San Francisco, and drove a 2005 Audi A6 with a group of auto journalists hammering up Highway 1 along the Marin County coast. Both of them are incredible cars: The Acura's high-resolution audio system and voice-recognition features kept me fully entertained even when the car was parked; the Audi made me feel like baiting teenagers in Camaros at stoplights, when I wasn't fiddling with its dynamically seeking radio or discovering touches like a glove box that has an electric release instead of a latch.

I'd love for all of the cars I ever own to be equipped like this, but at the same time I worry that these cool toys are so complicated that they may demand too much of a driver's attention. Is it our God-given right to talk on a cell phone, tune a satellite radio, and consult a navigation system to find out where the heck we're going, all while sitting behind the wheel of a hurtling 2-ton hunk of metal and plastic?

Both cars' audio, climate-control, and navigation systems seem well designed, but they're still complicated, and reading text and deciphering icons on the LCD screen took a lot of time. If I owned one of these vehicles, I'd probably get better at using the components, but it's up to the manufacturers to design devices so that drivers can operate them and still keep their eyes on the road. Of course, not all distractions are visual: You don't have to look away to use a cell phone, but three states have outlawed using one while driving because it can be so dangerous.

Some drivers should never be allowed access to toys like these. It's illegal virtually everywhere to watch a video while driving, but certain people have modified their in-dash DVD players so they can do just that. An Alaska man was accused of causing a fatal head-on collision because he was watching a movie on his in-dash DVD player. In August, he was acquitted of a charge of second-degree murder. But rigging a DVD player so that it even becomes possible to watch it while driving constitutes premeditated, first-degree stupidity.

It goes without saying that skillful, intelligent, considerate drivers like you and me can probably manage to operate highly evolved vehicles without running over pedestrians and errant barnyard animals. As for those drivers who can't, I encourage them to take a high-tech bus.