The red light, the knee, and the buzz

You're on the high street at ten past eight, third car back at the lights. The phone's in the cupholder and it lights up. You don't decide to look. Your hand is already there, and by the time the light goes green you've read the message, thought of a reply, and typed half of it. The car in front moves. You move. You finish the reply with your thumb at fifteen miles an hour, looking up between words, and put the phone back with the feeling of having done nothing at all.

Or it's the A-road at fifty. The buzz. You leave it for a bit, because you're not the kind of person who looks at fifty. Then the road straightens out and empties, and you pick it up and hold it low against your knee where nobody in the next lane can see it, and you read. Two seconds, maybe three. Your eyes come back up and everything's where you left it. It was a message about a parcel.

Or it's a call. You're on speaker, the phone in your left hand because the cradle's in the other car, and you're driving with your right. The call's fine. The driving's fine. Nobody could say you weren't in control.

Or it's the map. It's told you to turn where there's no turn, and you tap it to see what it meant, and then you tap it again, and for about six seconds you're a person looking at a screen who is also, in a secondary sort of way, steering.

Those are invented, but I'd guess at least two of them are yours. Some words. The peek is any look at the phone while the car is moving or in traffic, however short. The knee is where the phone goes to be read without being seen, and it's the position that takes your eyes furthest from the road. The lights is phone use while you're stopped at a red light or in a queue, which most people don't count. The buzz is the notification, and the itch is the urge that follows it, or arrives without one. The safe moment is the stretch of road you judge empty enough to look. The clean sheet is the fact that you've never crashed while doing any of this, and the thousand is roughly how many peeks that clean sheet contains. Out of reach is where the phone is going to live, which chapter 18 is about. The drive setting is the feature on most phones that silences it when it detects driving. The standing message is what you tell the people who expect replies, which chapter 19 is about.

Before you go on, do one thing for a week. Every time you peek, at the lights or on the move, make a note when you've parked. Where you were, roughly what speed, and what the message or the tap was actually about. Don't change anything yet. You'll want the list in chapter 11, and I think it'll surprise you.