A Deadly Wandering audiobook

Hi, welcome. I’m happy to see you are settling in to read this now. But…what?...really?…please…ignore that chirp that just told you a new e-mail arrived. It is probably just another add for Viagra or penile enlargement. It is almost never something critical, so…hey…come back. Son of a bitch. (Taps fingers on desk, plays some solitaire, checks watch) Ah, you’re back. Took long enough. Geez. All right, can we get back to it now? You remember? The book is A Deadly Wandering, a pretty amazing look at attention, the demands on it, how it functions, how it is being compromised, and what the implications are for some aspects of that. Stop, no, do you have to answer the phone now? Can’t it wait? (sighs loudly, checks e-mail on a separate screen; weather.com lets us know upcoming conditions in another tab; who is pitching for the Mets tonight?) Oh, you’re back, sorry. Been there long? I must have wandered off. Focus. I know a little bit about distraction. My last job entailed constant blasts of it. I worked as a dispatcher for a security company. I had a dozen or more sites checking in every hour to make sure our guards are not sleeping (or that they know how to set the alarms on their cell phones). People call asking for their schedules. People call at 2 in the morning to let us know they will not be showing up for their 6am shift. They call because they just turned the wrong way and the cell phone in their pocket somehow redialed the last number they’d called. They call at 4am to let us know they will not be coming in for their 6am shift. They call asking for direction when there is some event at their site that requires handling. (This does go on for a bit, so rather than inflict on you the horrors of my typical work night, I will leave a full viewing for the intrepid and tuck a chunk of it under a spoiler label)(view spoiler)[Our clients call, sometimes asking for emergency ASAP coverage in diverse places across the continent, sometimes to add ridiculous increases to the number of guards they want for a morning shift at a large institution. Our security guards call to ask if their check is at the office, or to inquire as to why the totals on their checks did not match what they expected. They call to let us know they have arrived at their post. They call to let us know they have clocked out for the day. They call at 5am to let us know they will not be in for their 6am shift because they have a newly discovered “appointment.” There are many, many calls. It makes it damned tough to keep a log of all the calls, particularly when half a dozen arrive at the exact same moment. It makes it tough to prepare the multiple reports of overnight activity, all of which have to be transmitted during the busiest time of the morning. In the middle of this, the boss comes in, drops papers on my desk and asks when this or that person arrived at or left from a post sometime in the last week or so. For someone who is, shall we say, not comfortable with being interrupted, this presents some challenges. And it presents a real problem. I used to write the bulk of my reviews while at work. And to enter notes, do research on items, and then compose actual reviews of books during this time could be a bit difficult. Thoughts that had not made their way into a file were in constant danger of vanishing into the ether with the next barrage of incomings. I screamed sometimes. (hide spoiler)] I frequently forgot what I was doing before the latest set of calls. And, struggling to remember, I was interrupted yet again by the next set. The one good thing about this blitzkrieg of interruption was that I am not enduring it while behind the wheel of a ton-plus hunk of metal hurtling down the road at 60 mph. My sanity might have been in jeopardy, (or long gone) but I presented no existential threat to the rest of humanity. The same cannot be said for the main character in Richtel’s story. By all accounts nineteen-year-old Reggie Shaw is a decent young man. A Mormon, he was eager to serve his community by preparing for and then undertaking an LDS mission. His first try had come up short, so he was back home, working until he could build up enough moral credit to try again. In September, 2006, while driving a Chevy Tahoe SUV, Reggie had his Cingular flip-phone with him and was texting with his girlfriend. A witness reported seeing him weaving across the center line multiple times. Finally, Reggie weaved too far. The results were fatal. Reggie came through ok but two scientists were killed as a result of Reggie’s texting, leaving wives and children to pick up the charred pieces of their lives and go on without their breadwinners, husbands, fathers. Reggie denied he was texting when the accident occurred.Matt Richtel is a novelist and top-notch reporter. He won a Pulitzer for a series of articles, written for the New York Times, in which he detailed the national safety crisis resulting from increasing use of distracting devices by drivers. He has written a few novels and even pens a comic strip. There is nothing at all amusing, however, about the tale he tells here. Matt Richtel - from his siteThe core of A Deadly Wandering is how constant distraction, particularly while in a car, kills. Richtel looks at the case of Reggie Shaw as a prime example of how the distractions that have become embedded in our lives have unintended consequences. Richtel spends time with Reggie, with the cop who pursued the case when most officials wanted to brush it off and move on, the surviving family members, and a victim’s advocate who pursued prosecution of the case. Richtel also talks with several neuroscientists who have been studying the science of attentiveness. That material is quite eye-opening. There are legal questions in here regarding where responsibility lies for such events, and how far communities are willing to go to punish violations and even to establish that such behavior is not permissible. Where does your freedom to act irresponsibly interfere with my right to stay alive? There are scientific questions about how the brain functions in a world that seems to demand multi-tasking. How does the brain work in dealing with attentiveness? What is possible? What is not? Where are the edges of that envelope?When drug companies want to bring to market a product for public use, they must go through a significant review process to make sure their product is safe to use. Before auto manufacturers can bring a vehicle to market they must put it through safety testing. But neither Verizon nor any other cellphone company supports legislation that bans drivers from talking on the phone. And the wireless industry does not conduct research on the dangers, saying that is not its responsibility - From - Dismissing the Risks of a Deadly Habit And the corporations know what they are doing with their techolology. If you take yourself back millennia, and you're in the jungle or you're in the forest and you see a lion, then the lion hits your sensory cortices and says to the frontal lobe, whatever you're doing, whatever hut you're building, stop and run.Well, here's what scientists think is happening in this data era, is that these pings of incoming email, the phone ringing, the buzz in your pocket, is almost like we get little tiny lions, little tiny threats or, let's say, maybe little tiny rabbits that you want to chase and eat, you get little tiny bursts of adrenaline that are bombarding your frontal lobe asking you to make choices. But in some ways these aren't modern bombardments; they're the most primitive bombardments. They're playing to these most primitive impulses and they're asking our brain to make very hard choices, a lot. - from the Terry Gross interviewIn addition, and in a chillingly similar impact to other addictive substances, our communications technology knows how to make itself feel crucial to us. when you check your information, when you get a buzz in your pocket, when you hear a ring - you get a dopamine squirt. You get a little rush of adrenaline. So you're getting that more and more and more and more. Well, guess what happens in its absence? You feel bored. You're actually conditioned by a kind of neurochemical response. - also from the NPR interviewRichtel follows Reggie’s story through to the end, at least for some of the players here. Laws have been changed. New knowledge has been gained. Responsibility has been allocated. Amends have been attempted. It is a moving tale. In addition, you will learn a lot about what science has found about how our brains handle multiple concurrent demands. You will learn about change in how distracted driving is being addressed by our legal system. But most of what you will get from reading this book is a chilling appreciation for what is involved in distracted driving. You might even be persuaded to switch off your phone the next time you get behind the wheel. At least I hope you are. I would like to live a bit longer and not be taken out before my time because someone was talking on the phone with their friend, texting with their significant other, or trying to order penile growth products from the road. I would like to live long enough to spend at least a few more nights screaming at the phone to stop ringing at work so I can get some writing done. That call you were thinking of making while in the car can wait. It really is a matter of life and death. A Deadly Wandering is must read material. Please, please pay attention.Review first posted – 7/18/14Publication date – 9/23/14Trade Paperback - 6/2/15This review has been cross-posted at Cootsreviews.com=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pagesA list of Richtel articles in the NY Times’ Bits blogThe Pulitzer site includes links to all the pieces in Richtel’s award-winning series. Very much worth checking outAnother article Richtel did looked at the benefits of uninterrupted face time free of technological intrusion, from August, 2010, Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the BrainThere is some great material in Richtel’s 2010 interview with Terry Gross on NPR, Digital Overload: Your Brain on GadgetsThere are some interesting pieces on Oprah’s site. Distracted Driving: What You Don't See is pretty good. And it is worth checking out Oprah's No Texting CampaignThe US Department of Transportation has a site dedicated to distracted driving. There are some interesting bits of information available there. October 22, 2015 - Richtel's latest look at distracted driving, a NY Times piece, Cars’ Voice-Activated Systems Distract Drivers, Study FindsFebruary 24, 2016 - Reading This While You Drive Could Increase Your Risk of Crashing Tenfold - By Nicholas St. Fleur, in the NY Times, reporting on a study of distracted driving conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, the results published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.April 13, 2016 - NY Times - Dispatcher Playing With Cellphone Is Faulted in German Train Crash by Alison SmaleApril 27, 2016 - NY Times article by the author on new tech for treating driving while texting like DUI - Texting and Driving? Watch Out for the TextalyzerAugust 17, 2016 - NY Times article about a proposal in New Jersey that goes beyond cell phones and texting - A Distracted-Driving Ban in New Jersey? Some Say It Threatens a Way of Life - by Vivian Yee According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 10 percent of fatal crashes and 18 percent of crashes that caused injuries in 2014 were reported to involve drivers distracted by activities including eating, smoking, adjusting the radio or air-conditioning, or being "lost in thought/daydreaming." They caused 3,179 deaths, injuring an estimated additional 431,000 people. In 2014, for the fifth straight year, distracted driving was the top cause of fatal crashes in New Jersey. November 15, 2016 - Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps by Neal E. BoudetteMarch 6, 2017 - Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens - Claudia Dreifus interviews Adam Alter about his book Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us HookedSeptember 2017 - National Geographic Magazine - How Science is Unlocking the Secrets of Addiction - By Fran SmithSeptember 6, 2018 - NY Times - Having Trouble Finishing This Headline? Then This Article Is for You. - By Concepción de LeónOctober 26, 2018 - NY Times Magazine - A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley - by Nellie Bowles - Silicon Valley exec know what goes into the tech of small screens and are trying to keep their kids from getting hooked["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>

Many of us are absolutely obsessed with staying connected – texting friends regularly throughout the day. Every single day, six billion texts are sent in the United States. Reggie Shaw, a young clean-cut Mormon teenager, was one of those texters. He did not know that he was quite literally on a collision course with destiny. As he inadvertently wove in and out of the lane, his car smashed into another car containing two family men, rocket scientists on their way to work. They were instantly killed.This gripping book – one of the most important books I’ve read – highlights the journey of Reggie Shaw from collision to reckoning to redemption. By placing a face on the tragedy, Pulitzer Prize winner Matt Richtel drums home the human costs of texting while controlling a two thousand pound piece of machinery.Yet A Deadly Wandering is far more than one man’s tale. It is a tale of our digital age gone awry. Our brain evolves at a glacial pace, with part of it operating unconsciously, automatically, driven by sensory stimulus and contextual cues” – a phone ringing or the sound of our name. Yet technology has exploded, overwhelming us with more information than we can handle. Much as we want to, we simply cannot focus 100% on two or more things at once. As a result, driving and texting is like driving impaired…not unlike drunk driving. We simly don’t have the brain capacity.Matt Richtel writes very accessibly about science: “When the phone rings, it triggers a whole social reward network. And it triggers an orienting response that has been wired into us since hunger-gatherer times. You had to pay attention for survival. If you didn’t attend you got eaten by lions. We’re hardwired that way, no matter what we want to do.”Each person in this sad and cautionary narrative is treated with empathy. Reggie Shaw is a good kid whose life is turned upside down by the tragedy. The victims, Jim Furaro and Keith O’Dell, were good men who died needlessly, leaving behind loving wives and daughters…and propulsive careers. Terryl Warner, the victim’s advocate, is a true survivor, relentless in her pursuit of justice. And Judge Thomas Willmore, who balances justice with fairness and orders his defendants to read Les Miserables, is surely one of the finest of his profession.On a personal note: as someone whose business depends on fast response, my cell phone is right next to me when I drive. This is a behavior-changing book that persuasively shows the human cost of distracted driving. Reggie Shaw’s texting cost two lives; his mission to publicize that tragedy may save thousands. As Arthur Miller wrote in Death of a Salesman, “Attention must be paid.”

We all know texting while driving is dangerous. So why do we keep doing it? Could it be that we CAN'T stop the compulsion to stay connected; that we are so over-stimulated by our social networks and pressured to multitask that we are addicted, and in collective denial? A Deadly Wandering is a riveting account of the fatal tragedy and subsequent seminal legal (and moral) battle that led to texting-while-driving bans being signed into law. It links neuroscience research, legal undertakings, and narrative nonfiction—full of vivid, heartbreaking real-life “characters”—to expose and objectively question our modern glorification of multitasking and tech-connectedness. Richtel’s exceptional reporting will absolutely change the way you think about the devices that keep us online: you will close this book transformed. This is astonishing, moving, eye-opening stuff—and a crucial conversation, as we grow frighteningly more and more attached to our devices. One of the most important books of our time.

ScienceThrillers.com review: Matt Richtel is a science journalist who covers Silicon Valley for the New York Times. In 2009, he wrote a front page story about distracted driving. The story went viral in part because the subject touches so many of us. Richtel was one of the first to put a mirror in front of us, making us unwillingly recognize the ways in which we have allowed our technology to control us and to put us at risk both physically (while driving) and emotionally (in our relationships). His one story became a series, and a Pulitzer Prize followed.Richtel is fascinated by our uneasy coexistence with digital connectedness and invasive communication. He has spun this interest and expertise beyond world-class journalism into fiction with several brilliant science thriller novels (The Cloud, Devil's Plaything). Now with the release of A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention, Richtel brings his thoughtful, articulate writing to book-length narrative nonfiction.A Deadly Wandering might change your life.Most of the words in this book tell the stories of people affected by a horrible car wreck in Utah in 2006. The primary focus is on Reggie Shaw, a 19-year-old Everyman who was texting while driving and crossed the center line, killing two people. In the style of a well-written true crime tale, A Deadly Wandering explores the characters: Reggie, his family, the victims and their families, neighbors in the small community, law enforcement, legislators, judges, and jailers. These stories of tragedy and its aftermath make for a page-turning read.But Richtel does more than tell the story of the 2006 crash. Using that incident as the example that illustrates the rule, Richtel weaves alternating chapters about the larger story of distracted driving and the even bigger story of our relationship with modern communications technology. With the help of neuroscientists who study the brain and its ability (or inability) to pay attention (some of the most interesting characters in this book), Richtel asks, why is it so hard to lock away the phone when we’re driving? Is social technology addictive? An extreme compulsion? Or simply habit forming?The author says:All the tweets and Facebook updates, the emails, the YouTube videos, and texts are not creating themselves. They are enabled by technology, sure. But they are driven by the humans pressing the buttons, asking for a tiny piece of the fractured spotlight.He cites research that “the motivation to disclose our internal thoughts and knowledge to others” is inherent to our species. We have a deep, primitive desire to communicate. For millennia, our technical ability to give and receive communication was proportional to our brain’s ability to process it. This is no longer the case. Each click, each ping, “gives a little rush, a tiny dopamine squirt,” a narcotic-like pleasure to our brains, but our attention is overwhelmed.A Deadly Wandering also explores questions of justice and forgiveness, and the emergence of legislation to restrict phone use while driving. Richtel highlights the problem that hands-free cell phone use is no less distracting than holding a phone to your ear, and that automakers are introducing ever more distracting technologies into the cockpits of our cars, and that from a neurological perspective, multitasking is a myth.After reading this book, I’ve examined my own use of social technology and am approaching not only cell phone use in the car but all my digital interactions with a new trepidation. The message, I think, is one we all pay lip service to but are challenged to act upon: Be fully with the people in your presence. Simplify. And pay attention.

One morning in September, 2006, Reggie Shaw was driving while texting on a Utah road. He was witnessed swerving into the oncoming lane several times. He ended up hitting another vehicle that held two men, both rocket scientists, husbands, and fathers. They were killed on impact. This book describes the dangers of driving and texting but, more than that, the impact of modern interactive technologies on human attention. It also goes into the lives of the people who were involved in the crash: the families of the dead men, Reggie and his family, the people in the justice system, and the police.The chapters are short and each one is about either a person who is involved in the accident on some level, the justice system, or the neuroscientists working on attention. I found the writing fascinating. I don't read a lot of non-fiction and when a book holds my attention like this one did, it has to be a page-turner. Matt Richtel, the author and a New York Times journalist, is a pulitzer prize winner.Initially, Reggie does not remember what happened during the accident and lies about having texted while driving. He is a member of the LDS church and his greatest desire is to go on a mission. He was denied a mission once because he lied to his bishop about the nature of his relationship with his girlfriend. After the accident, he is intent on going on another mission. To those who look at him, he appears to have no remorse, though internally, he is traumatized.Terryl is the victim's advocate for the county in Utah where the accident occurred. She has experienced a very rough childhood that has made her resilient and strong. She is determined that Reggie not get a free pass on what occurred. She wants him punished to the full extent of the law.The research that is now occurring on attention and interactive technological devices is laid out so that anyone can understand it. It has been proven that talking on a cell phone or texting while driving causes loss of attention and an increased number of accidents. Multi-tasking decreases attention; it does not extend it. In fact, research has demonstrated that "using a phone behind the wheel is as risky as driving drunk."I found some of the information repetitive and I felt like the author repeated things because they were so important. I agree with him. They are very important. However, I wish he had trusted the acumen of his readers to absorb and retain what he said rather than feeling the need to restate the obvious.This is a very important book, one that I am very glad I read. I know people who are glued to their phones or other devices and rarely look up. They are a danger to themselves and others. I hope they are the ones that read this book.

3.75 Stars I finished this a couple days ago but forgot to update my goodreads. This was a very well informed book about texting and driving and the problems technology creates in society today. However, their were points in the book that were really stretched out for absolutely no reason (during discussions in my AP English class I said that it was like a student writing a 1000 word essay but only being at 750 words so they just keep repeating what they already said until they hit word count). I'm excited to meet the author and discuss it and why he decided to include certain people's perspectives.

A Deadly Wandering I won an advance copy from Goodreads and I have not been able to put it down. Richtel weaves an engrossing narrative, with excellently researched background and science. Richtel does a great job presenting the story, the mindset of the characters and the scientific data without imposing his own value judgements. The reader must make up their own mind. This is a must-read for anybody who uses digital devices. I guess that means it's a must-read for everybody.

Last week, I went on a birdwatching trip that required me to travel alone from central OH to SW West VA. It was an easy drive but I had never been there before, so I had to pay attention. I decided what better way to occupy myself while driving than listing to my tutorials for birding by ear--how to recognize songs and calls. However, I found myself having to restart the various tracks because while I was learning the difference between hairy and downy woodpeckers I found that the track was on to downys and I had missed the hairys. This happened several times before I gave up and put in The Traveling Wilburys.Suppose I had decided to concentrate on woodpeckers instead of, for example, where to get off of Rt.33 to I-50 or whether someone is about to pull out ahead of me to reach an exit? This could not have been a more perfect example of how people choose what they will attend to. This book is about a young man who chose his cell phone over staying in his lane, and two rocket scientists died as a result. He will think about this every day for the rest of his long life. Outreach and education are his penance. I wanted to hate him for what he did. But in the end I was profoundly sorry for him, as well as the families his actions tore into pieces.

This book is a journalistic report of a tragic event along with the research, science and lay interpretations of it all. The story aspect of the book is solid and while I’m familiar with some of the players as colleagues and as friends I found myself listening to the experience through the author’s investigation and able to set aside any bias I might have brought to the situation. The parallel reporting on the leading edge science, at the time, of human attention and technology is compelling. The fact that Reggie chose to use his voice and experience to work toward change for himself, the victims and all of society is heroic, but he would never consider it such. This case set precedent in the US as it propelled the state political leaders to enact law and force our thinking about distraction and driving to new boundaries. I recommend this book for all drivers, new young teen drivers along with those who have or have not ever been in an accident.

This book is a page turning combination of real life tragedy, neuroscientific discoveries, and the attempt of one teenager to somehow redeem the fact that he killed two people one morning, while driving and sending 11 texts to his girlfriend. You'll turn your phone off every time you get in the car after reading it, and change lanes if you see anyone staring at their phone in traffic. It could literally be the only thing that saves your life. If you have a teenage or young adult friend or family member, make a gift of this book.

I really enjoyed this. It was a nice mixture of science-heavy background and putting human faces on the important issue that is distracted driving. But it also has an overall theme that is paramount to this generation -- issues with attention and distraction due to brain-overload with all of our constantly chirping and chiming social and mobile devices.Highly recommended.

Richtel writes, "We all know that texting and driving is dangerous, but we do it anyway. Why?" This is THE question. I wish everyone would read this book, understand the science, quit texting & driving, and we wouldn't have to ask that question anymore. This book is a great read, and it's packed with scientific evidence that we really don't have the capabilities to multitask like we think we do. Reggie's story puts a human face to the tragedy this can cause. His is a cautionary tale, and I think, "But for the grace of God, go I." And, I loved reading a book about where I live.I wish it were required reading for everyone who drives.Some of my favorite lines from the book:"the cocktail party effect shows the limitations of attention; after all, you can't pay attention to two conversations at once. In fact, it's so limited that if you're really listening to the person in front of you, there are generally only two things you can pick up in a different conversation: the gender of the person speaking or, in some cases, the sound of your name.""it's a visual, manual, cognitive problem." -Dr. Strayer"the reward areas of the brain light up when people share" information."When the television is on, parents and children disengage from one another. The parents, even if not instructed to watch television, talk less to their children and respond less to children's inquiries and efforts to get attention, according to a summary published in 2009 by some of the field's leading researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In the study, parents interacted with their children 68 percent of the time when the television was off and 54 percent of the time when it was on. Further, the research showed, the 'quality' of the interaction fell, too, with the parent less likely to be engaged or even look at the child when they do interact.""children who watch more television in their toddler years are significantly more likely to have attention problems by age seven.""researchers worry that heavy use of interactive media can, over time, reduce attention spans.""It could be compromising our ability to make decisions.""learning, memory, and decision making get impacted by an overloaded brain.""If it co-opts our attention, it could reshape our sense of reality."Dr. Strayer on texting and driving: "'The scientific data says there is a sixfold increase in crash risk.' [... A] driver talking on the phone faced a four-times increase in likelihood of a crash. & 'Depending on the complexity of the driving task, it may take fifteen seconds or more after you've pushed "send" before you're fully back in an unimpaired state.'""'The culture is: "It's not me, it's you. I'm the good driver"' Harsha says."

I like almost all genres of books and this non-fiction read was pretty awesome.This is the true story of a car accident that took the lives of two rocket scientists. It's 2006 and Reggie Shaw is like most Mormon kids his age. He works, goes to worship and is trying to figure out how to go on a missi

4.5 stars, rounded up. It was a day that started out like any other. Reggie Shaw, a young man recently out of high school, came upon a mountain pass on his way to work in Utah. His phone buzzed, and he read and responded to a text message, and then another. It was a split-second decision with a lifetime of consequences. Before he knew it, Shaw’s vehicle had swerved over the line and clipped another car, which spun out and was essentially cut in two by another truck. The two men in the car - fathers, husbands, rocket scientists - were killed on impact. The accident occurred in 2006, and over a decade later, Shaw is still expiating his act through speaking and organizing at events designed to raise awareness of the risks of texting and driving. Richtel’s book is a comprehensive account of the science, legislation, and legal maneuverings around Reggie’s case and the science of attention in general. Simply, who hasn’t texted while driving? And yet, we know the consequences, the ramifications, the possibilities. Reading this book nonetheless renewed my awareness and appreciation of the threat of technology and importance of attention in a new and increasingly significant way. 4.5 ⭐️ rather than 5 because of the age of the law and research (the case focuses on the advent of texting and driving laws, which are common now), rounded up because it is relevant nonetheless.

This was my second read of this book. I can't recommend it enough. Published in 2014, It tells the story of a 2006 head-on crash that killed two people. It is the first case in the US to successfully link mobile phone usage in a vehicle to a level of cogntive impairment that is the equivalent of drunk driving. The chapters tracking the incident and subsequent prosecution alternate with chapters entitles "The Neuroscientists" bringing us a roller coaster of a book. The book'ssubtitle is "A Mystery, A Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age". The author, Matt Richtel, won a 2010 Pulitizer Prize for a series of articles that he wrote on the pervasive risk of distracted driving and its root causes. His wife is a neurologist. It is because of this book that I no longer even own a road bike, forgoing decades of pavement riding in favor of entering safer trails that bring me into the forest. The advent of talking GPS and now interactive dashboard screens are all extension of the problem, but do wish I had one of those backup rear camera screens now that arthritis is compromising my ability to easily rotate my head to look backward while in the vehicle.