Driver distractions multiplying

"The intention as we move forward is to really structure the system, structure the cars, so the only thing the driver sees are the things that are really related to the driver," said Shields.

Ultimately, the experts said, tech distractions may be eliminated by, well, eliminating them, at least temporarily. To keep the driver from watching a DVD, the player might be automatically disengaged when the car is put in "drive."

A "rumble-strip type of approach" — with little tugs on the steering wheel as an alert — might be effective, but Shields cautioned that it would need to alert drivers and not frighten them. More effective would be the device cut-off, which would silence a radio or cell phone when the driver, say, is making a turn.

"That's much less annoying," he said. "There's a number of these things as we get smarter where we can allow it, and that goes for e-mail. If you're going 60 miles an hour on an open expressway, there's no reason that you can't have e-mail read to you. If you're driving in a complicated, urban environment, you probably shouldn't be doing anything."

But despite research being done by car companies, suppliers, industry associations and universities worldwide, solutions remain elusive. For example, Shields stressed that tests using a "red, yellow, green" signal on mirrors to warn drivers of blind-spot hazards worked well, but only for a while.

"You still have to look," he said. "And after two months, nobody looks. So we end up with technology where we can improve it, but we have to be 100 percent right before we can put it into a car, or we have the consequence of people starting to use it, and even though it would improve if they keep looking, it doesn't improve overall.

"We have to get out of the mode where the penalty for making a mistake is death, so the crash-avoidance technologies will try to mitigate many of these. But there's no way that we know of to make you pay attention."

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Contributing: The Associated Press

E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com