The standing message

Out of reach solves the hand. It doesn't solve the people, and the people are why the urgent belief has held up so long. If your boss, your partner, your mother and your friend all expect an answer within ten minutes, then every drive is ten minutes of letting someone down, and the peek is how you've been avoiding it. So tell them.

Who to tell. Look at the list from chapter 1 and see whose messages you peeked at. It's usually four or five people. Those are the ones who need to hear it, and it's one sentence each. "I don't see messages when I'm driving, so if you need me in the next half hour, ring twice." That's the standing message, and once it's said, it's said. You don't have to explain yourself at every drive. They know.

What it does. It moves the expectation. Before, a slow reply from the car was you being slow. After, it's you driving, and they knew that. The pressure you felt at the buzz was partly real, because the people did expect a reply, and the standing message takes the real part away. What's left is the itch on its own, and the itch on its own is much easier to leave in the glovebox.

At work. If your job involves being reachable, the standing message is a conversation with whoever needs you rather than a text. "I'm driving between sites for about an hour most days. Ring twice if it's urgent, otherwise I'll pick it up when I'm parked." Most managers say yes to that, because the alternative is either you crashing the company car or you lying about not having seen the message, and they'd prefer neither. If yours says no, that's a fact about the job and chapter 22 has the on-call case.

The auto reply. The drive setting can send the standing message for you, which means people who message you for the first time get it too. It's blunt, and that's fine. "I'm driving and will reply when I stop" is a sentence nobody has ever been offended by.

What you'll find. I'd expect, and it's an expectation not a finding, that nobody minds. People are told all the time that someone's in a meeting, on a train, at the dentist. Driving is a reason everyone already accepts. The only person who ever thought you had to reply from the car was you, and you thought it because the itch needed a reason.