At 6.20am one morning last week I found myself on the ITV Daybreak sofa talking about eating while driving. And with a rumbling tummy at that time of the day, I wished I was.
It’s never been illegal to munch on the move but a new survey from the road safety charity Brake claims it contributes to one in five crashes – with the added observation that ‘unwrapping and eating a burger increases the risk even more’. Try excavating a 12in pizza while stabbing a Capri-Sun…
It is a serious issue though because if quelling your hunger pangs or quenching your thirst leads to careless or dangerous driving, you can be prosecuted from a £100 fine to a jail sentence. And rightly so. But popping in a Murray Mint?
Car manufacturers themselves encourage mobile picnics by fitting cup holders throughout their cabins and refrigerated glove boxes.
And Fiat’s 500L became the first car in the world to be offered with an integrated espresso machine when it was launched in 2012.
We are such a time-poor nation these days that even if we’re desk-tied, very few of us take the recommended hour-long lunch break – not like our European counterparts who stop for a carafe of wine and a siesta.
So when we are in the car with a couple of hours still to go, who really is going to pull over to the M9’s Stirling Services for a three-course luncheon?
Our facilities aren’t like those in France either, where there are purpose-built eating areas away from the relentless traffic, with inviting wooden tables nestled amongst mini forests. And lavatories that have actually been cleaned.
Eating at the wheel can also be a necessity for certain people – spare a thought for pregnant women who can become crazed with the need for a saveloy sausage and a bag of salty chips right now.
It happened to me mid-trip one day when I was in such a frenzied state of needing instant satiation that I wolfed down the bag, plus chips, before I’d yanked them clean of the Drive-Thru’s window.
And what about all those road-side restaurants that are geared to feed at speed? The petrol stations with shelves of sandwiches and piles of pasties? Not one of them displays a warning that eating at the wheel can contribute to 22% of accidents.
Brake says eating is as dangerous as using a mobile phone in the car, but I disagree. Your brain remains very much in the driving moment when you eat, but it is taken far away to concentrate on the subject of a phone call as soon as you connect, and that’s distractingly dangerous.
I think driving in high heels or flip-flops outweigh the potential perils of nibbling on nuts. And what about smoking? That involves fire, for goodness sake.
Oh, it all makes me want to stay on that sofa.
Vicki returns on April 2 and Fifth Gear is currently on air with its 24th series, every Monday at 8pm on the Discovery Channel until (Sky 502; Virgin 212)