The hero of this week is a chap who goes by the name of John S.Wisniewki. He is an assemblyman from New Jersey and his mission is to stop drivers from eating and drinking on the move.
As someone who once suffered a nasty coffee spillage in the groin region on the way to work I can only applaud his initiative in raising a bill to stop driving distractions like this.
However, I can’t help wondering whether there are some foods which we could eat safely while behind the wheel or not. After all, there has got to be a difference between nibbling a bar of chocolate while driving and sitting there with a full Sunday lunch balanced on your lap. In fact, maybe I could come up some safer ways to eat some things.
The Spaghetti Device
Photo credit: Wesley Fryer
On the face of it, spaghetti is one of the worst foods of all for drivers to get their gnashers around. After all, most grown adults end up with a massively stained mouth and badly splashed clothes after eating a simple plate of spaghetti bolognaise at home. However, I have been thinking that we could use some sort of pasta dispensing device which puts a strand into our mouth at a time. After this, all you need to do is put your lips together and slurp without taking your hands off the wheel. Hang on though; what about the sauce?
The Soup Feeder
I have in my attic the perfect device for consuming soup on the go. When I went on a trip to the rainforest a few years ago my mum misunderstood what I said. I was going to lounge about in hammocks, listen to Bob Marley and eat bananas all day but she thought I was going to turn into Bear Grylls, or at least David Bellamy. She bought me an army standard water tank which connects to your back and has a straw leading to your mouth. This could easily be adapted to allow you to strap it to the driver’s seat and sip some minestrone on your daily commute. I think that leek and potato might be too lumpy though, while mulligatawny could get positively messy. Washing it out afterwards would be a nightmare too.
To be fair, it seems that the assemblyman was probably right. Eating and drinking while driving is a messy and dangerous business no matter how you try and get round it. Actually, some research suggests this it is worse than drink driving, so please don’t do it.
What foods do you think are safe or unsafe to eat while driving?