People keep mentioning that having a conversation is a distraction when you should be driving. I agree... but I don't.

I think that it's not just conversation that is the issue... it's that it's a conversation with someone who isn't present with you. The level of concentration is different. If someone is sitting beside me while I am driving, even though they are in the periphery, I'm getting queues from their hand motions, whether they are slouching or on the edge of the seat, stopping to sip their Diet Coke, etc.

If the other person is in my phone, I have to turn my ears on 'high' and hyper-focus on what I'm hearing. Has the call been dropped? Was that said to me or did somebody else walk into their kitchn and ask something? There are just a million other aspects you have to mentally attend when you can't *see* the other person that make a cell phone conversation different than an in-person one.

I do occasionally talk while driving, but it's rare, it's short, and because I do it so rarely I don't have a sense of complacency about it and am hyper-aware of my driving.... more than I am aware of my conversation. I don't want it to be any other way, so I won't take it up as an everyday practice anytime soon.