Fifty-five is fast enough to kill you, but slow enough to make you think you're safe. -Michael Sarrazin in The Gumball Rally
When you’re sitting in the driver’s seat going along at whatever speed and you want to drop one hand to your lap and drive with only one hand, you’re bored. Bored driving is when it gets dangerous. The danger has less to do with speed than it does any situation where you aren’t paying 100% attention to the road.
The challenge here is that too much of the time driving has been relegated to the world of the mundane. Straight roads with little or no features and speed limits which are set low enough for even the least skilled driver to be able to safely take the road; theoretically, anyway. Add to that vehicles with poor suspensions, slushy transmissions and engines with no useful torque curve and the driving experience is simply lacking.
Do I drive with one hand? No way to deny it, yes it happens. When I get on the Interstate and start the (overly) long commute to work I get up to speed, set the cruise control (aka, cheat mode) and drop one hand off the steering wheel. This is exactly what happens when the drive one is facing is boring.
Driving shouldn’t be boring. It should be exciting, engaging, amazing and lots of other things ending in “ing”; but boring shouldn’t be on that list.