We've all been there, though some of us died in the crash

...Now the driver's line of gaze had to deviate a whole ninety degrees from the road to engage with his passenger, sometimes for seconds on end, during which time, by Beard's calculation, they traveled several hundred meters. You don't have to look at me to talk to me, he wanted to say as he watched the traffic ahead, trying to predict the moment when he might seize the wheel. But even Beard found it difficult to criticize a man who was giving him a lift—his host, in effect. Rather die or spend a life as a morose quadriplegic than be impolite. [p. 36, Solar, by Ian McEwan, 2010]

Beard is the same Michael Beard I introduced in my report of reading a short story, presumably from the novel, that appeared in the December 7 issue of The New Yorker Magazine.