Cars Becoming Restaurants On Wheels

Americans aren’t content merely to read, shave, switch tapes and apply makeup as they drive.

They’re eating and drinking behind the wheel more than ever, report the folks at the NPD Group Inc. of Park Ridge, Ill., a market-research firm that tracks the country’s dining habits.

The average American eats and drinks while driving 12 times a year, says NPD’s Dave Jenkins. To any motorist who has watched a driver in a neighboring lane try to maneuver a Buick at 70 mph while juggling a Big Mac, fries and a 32-ounce soft drink, that frequency seems low.

Yet, notes Jenkins, the phenomenon of the dining driver has jumped about 33 percent over the past 10 years, and it’s climbing.

What’s more, the NPD Group tracks only the on-road consumption of foods bought at restaurants - burgers, burritos, french fries and the like. They aren’t into monitoring consumption of doughnuts, candy, coffee and other foods brought from home. In other words, that 12 times per person per year is a conservative calculation. In other words, the car’s only spare tire isn’t in the trunk.

Americans more often eat a la car because: They’re pressed for time; traffic congestion has worsened; commutes are longer; fast-food drivethroughs are more readily accessible.

Last year, however, a couple of academicians gave the Wall Street Journal two other reasons why people are eating more often in their vehicles. For one, the car is the quietest restaurant in town.

Secondly, driving is visually overstimulating; as a consequence, motorists who want to maintain their sensory equilibrium will crank up the radio or start chewing on jerky, suggested Michael T. Marsden of Northern Michigan University, just the place to be if you’re into car culture.

Car manufacturers don’t need cultural anthropologists or market analysts to tell them Americans are looking at their vehicles as extensions of the breakfast nook. Car shoppers started to tell them that several years ago. And today, as a result, any automaker that doesn’t equip its latest models with at least one or two cup holders runs the risk of jeopardizing a sale, says Mike Burns, a car show exhibit manager for Mitsubishi.

“If you don’t have a cup holder to show them, they’re liable to walk away,” Burns said. “It’s one of the first questions they ask - ‘Where’s the cup holder?’ It’s considered almost as important as the airbag.”

Vehicle designers have complied, providing all sorts of ingenious cup holders. They curl out of padded armrests between driver and passenger. They slide pneumatically out of the dashboard. They mushroom from consoles like small skeletal robots. They come with adjustable arms to accommodate any size cup, can or bottle.

They have nonskid bottoms and rubber or felt bumpers so they won’t be held so tightly that their contents splash all over the place. Next could be their own shocks.

Almost to a person, however, auto representatives express mixed feelings about whether people should eat and drink while driving, and about whether the industry should cater them.

“To encourage eating and drinking isn’t very safe,” said Kurt Kubicki, a sales manager with Isuzu. “We want to make vehicles user-friendly, but if someone drops or spills something he might bend over, not watch where he’s going and hit somebody. An automobile is designed to transport people and cargo, it isn’t a restaurant on wheels.”

Yet, Isuzu’s Trooper comes with cup holders and a console whose top could double as a picnic table, and the Rodeo soon is to be similarly equipped.

Others shared his opinion, but were upbeat that designers increasingly will make cup holders and the like as familiar and as easy to use as the radio’s buttons and knobs. Gradually, they predict, the risk of having a doughnut spread across your face by an inflating air bag will drop.

“Hopefully, these accessories will be convenient enough that you won’t have to take your mind off what you’re doing,” said Ray Moffat, a district manager with Buick. “The most important thing is for the driver to keep his eyes on the road.”

Now please pass the cream and sugar.