[isostatic]

How badly is your driving skill effected when you listen to a podcast? I won't listen to audio books in the car because it takes concentration away from what I should be doing (safely operating a mechanical killing machine at 70mph)

[petercooper]

I can't speak for camiller, but I'd say it improves my driving. It engages a totally different part of the brain, and listening to spoken audio stops my mind from wandering and daydreaming by chatting to itself. For similar reasons, I listen to audio books while going to sleep (obviously, the physical and visual stimuli while driving ensure I don't fall asleep then ;-)).

[wccrawford]

I've listened to audio books in my car for years now, and the worst thing that happens is that I'll fail to listen to the audio for a while if anything important happens while driving.

It has never, ever happened the other way.

[camiller]

Pretty much what petercooper and wccrawford said. There are times when I have to roll back 30 seconds, but I've never caused an accident or failed to react to some other drivers poor skills. That said, everyone is different, do what works for you, even if that is abstaining!