I once saw a statistic in a book that went like this:
“In 2005, an insurance company conducted a survey and found that 17% of Americans had nearly caused a car accident by picking their noses while driving.”
I suspect the real situation may be much worse than that. After all, we’d rather say we crashed because we hadn’t had enough sleep or were taking a phone call than admit we crashed because we were picking our noses. That’s just… too embarrassing.
Traffic enforcement departments in some countries also know all too well what a road killer nose-picking can be: in Canada, “picking your nose while driving will get you an 850-Canadian-dollar fine, 350 dollars more than driving while talking on the phone.”
I couldn’t help wondering: why is picking your nose while driving so dangerous?
After turning it over and over in my mind, I came up with two reasons.
Reason 1: Picking your nose is an intensely focused activity.
People often say we live in an age of scarce attentional resources. Our attention is constantly pulled away by notification sounds from our phones and by sexy models on billboards, and people today rarely manage to concentrate for long periods. I think that claim needs one exception: picking your nose. The moment your finger goes into your nostril, the world suddenly falls silent. From that moment on, the noise and bustle of the world have nothing to do with you. All your energy pours into the sensation of your nose being excavated—this is practically a “Zen meditation moment.” And we know how dangerous it is to let something other than driving occupy your attention while you’re driving.
Reason 2: You simply can’t stop picking your nose!
Picking your nose is highly compulsive. Being forced to stop halfway through can be summed up in eight words:
A hundred claws scratching your heart; life is worse than death.
So even when you’ve noticed something on the road that needs dealing with, it’s very hard to order yourself to pull your hand out of your nostril. You have to keep digging until it feels good!
I think that’s probably why picking your nose becomes a road killer.
There are countless roads,
but safety comes first,
pick your nose while driving,
and your loved ones will shed two lines of tears!
Note
- This series of “New Psychological Knowledge: Short Lessons” articles consisted of popular-psychology pieces and casual essays written at the time to accompany content related to Zhichao Wei: New Psychological Knowledge Course. They were published on the now-closed platform F团, and the original article link no longer exists.
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