Nationally, officials believe up to 30 percent of crashes are caused by driver distractions that include mobile communications devices. A March report by the National Conference of State Legislatures suggests device-related distractions that killed an estimated 600 to 1,000 motorists in 2001 could kill 2,000 a year by 2004.
Academics have coined the word "carcooning" to describe how people increasingly outfit their cars for comfort, entertainment and productivity. Phone systems are built in. New stereos pull in satellite radio broadcasts and play MP3 files downloaded from the Internet.
—Jim Wasserman, "Inattention at the wheel: It's so much more than cell phones," The Associated Press, August 22, 2002
If you've been in Los Angeles for long enough to read this sentence, chances are you've spent more time stuck in traffic than you would care to consider.
That annoying fact of Southern California life is only going to become more annoying and more of a factor with time, which is the point of "Car Trek," tonight's edition of "By the Year 2000" at 7:30 on KCET (Channel 28) [which] also looks at the phenomena of "carcooning" in which drivers turn their autos into virtual cocoons with all the amenities of home and the office.
—Phil Rosenthal, "L.A. Life: Television," Los Angeles Daily News, October 18, 1989
