History Main / DriverFacesPassenger

This trope is nearly ubiquitous, so use this section to list {{subver|tedTrope}}sions and {{lampshade hanging}}s.

* Averted in the early seasons of ''Series/Smallville''. Numerous episodes involve something bad happening the moment someone takes their eyes off the road. Lex first encounters Clark by driving into him.

!!Examples

* RealLife: Ken and Curt, from the fourth season of ''Series/CanadasWorstDriver'', have this cited as among their worst problems. And Scott from Season Six was often called "Hollywood" as an insult by his nominator, who eventually cancelled Scotts insurance. In other words, Scott was kicked off the show by his own nominator--in the ''second episode'', no less!

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/YoungAvengers http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bro-hawkeye-bro_7402.jpg]]]]

* In Larry Niven's short story "The Deadlier Weapon", a hitchhiker pulls a knife on a driver, who responds by accelerating the high speed and threatening to ram an overpass support. As part of the psychological pressure, he keeps looking away from the road to face the hitchhiker, including when he [[spoiler:surrenders and drops his knife out the window]].

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* In the film ''{{Amelie}}'', this is brought up as a pet peeve of the title character. It shows footage from some black-and-white movie to demonstrate.

* Webcomic/SluggyFreelance: In the second [[Literature/HarryPotter Torg Potter]] storyline, Weaselo is too busy showing pictures to Torg, prompting Torg to yell "Eyes on the road." Despite them being in a flying car, this is still relevant.

* Dan rails against the idea of this in the commentary of an ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' comic featuring Susan and Sarah having a conversation. Susan actually points to (bits of) Sarah; all the while, her eyes are fixed on the road ahead. In fact, the only time in the car Susan isn't looking forward is when she's shown turning right.

In RealLife, taking your focus off the road for even the duration of an extended sneezing fit or to answer a phone call or text or try to control misbehaving children in the backseat is a ''major'' cause of serious and fatal (and not-serious as well) accidents, as are other forms of "distracted driving." In fact, distracted driving is even ''more'' likely to actually cause an accident than drunk driving below 0.12 with the drunk focused on the road, because to a certain degree of intoxication, a drunk can ''actually see'' what is going on around them, if not otherwise distracted, and because distracted driving is far, far more common than drunk driving. If you must do something that will take your full visual focus off the road for more than a few seconds, ''pull over.''

!!Examples:

[[folder: Film]]
* Lampshaded in ''StrangeBrew''. While driving, the [=McKenzie=] brothers discuss how people in movies never look at the road in driving scenes. During this conversation, Doug (who's driving) swivels all the way around in his seat to face Bob directly, causing them to almost crash.
* From ''TwoFastTwoFurious'': "He did the stare-and-drive on you, didn't he? He got that from me."
** Seann William Scott plays this one for laughs in the ''DukesOfHazzard'' movie.

* Lloyd drives a limo like this in ''DumbAndDumber'' while telling his passenger how dangerous drivers are today. At one point, we hear tires screeching, and shortly afterwards there's an explosion behind the car. Lloyd doesn't notice.
* Creator/HaroldLloyd takes the first example to a ridiculous extreme in his silent 1928 comedy ''Film/{{Speedy}}''. Playing a NYC cabdriver, he picks up none other than [[TheCameo Babe Ruth]], and is so starstruck that he repeatedly turns around to chat with his hero...while driving through heavy Midtown traffic at a dizzyingly fast speed, much to Ruth's horror.
* Subverted in ''TheBlindSide''. It looks like the trope is played straight at first, but then RealityEnsues with a car accident.
* This happens for a full 20 seconds at the end of ''EverythingIsIlluminated''.
* ''Film/HalloweenII2009'' (2009) features a sequence where the driver of an ambulance would rather stare at the mouth of the guy in the passenger seat. [[spoiler: Then they hit a cow.]]

* In ''Film/FirstBlood'' Rambo climbs into the passenger seat of a military truck and holds the driver at knifepoint. When the driver stares at him Rambo tells him to look at the road and not at him (and for some reason he feels the need to spell out that not looking at the road causes accidents).

* In the book ''LastChanceToSee'', DouglasAdams talks about how their driver would turn to look at you when asking a question. He would not look back at the road until he got an answer, making it very hard to form coherent sentences.

[[folder: LiveActionTV]]
* This caused Dick and Mary to crash once on ''ThirdRockFromTheSun''.

* TruthInTelevision: During the Alfa Romeo Challenge on ''TopGear'', Jeremy Clarkson demonstrates just how loose the steering is on Hammond's 2.0 Spyder, wiggling the wheel 30 degrees each way, and the front wheels shown on camera are not moving at all. He then Lampshades it by saying: "You can drive this car through an [[EagleLand American]] movie!"
* On ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' Gibbs drives without looking at the road while speeding and heading toward oncoming traffic, much to the terror of his team members. He's never had an accident.
** Ziva does this too, to a lesser extent.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': Booth spends an inordinate amount of time looking at Bones as they talk in his SUV, instead of keeping his eyes on those busy Washington DC city streets.

[[folder:NewspaperComics]]
* Exaggerated and parodied in one ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' strip when the guys are on a "Billy and the Boingers" tour. Steve Dallas calls the band together in the back of their van for a meeting, then:
-->'''Steve:''' "Waitasecond..." ''(looks around)'' "...[[OhCrap WHO'S DRIVING?!]]"
-->'''Opus:''' "Cool your jets, I put the cruise control on."

[[folder:WebComics]]
* Dan rails against the idea of this in the commentary of an ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' comic featuring Susan and Sarah having a conversation. Susan actually points to (bits of) Sarah; all the while, her eyes are fixed on the road ahead. In fact, the only time in the car Susan isn't looking forward is when she's shown turning right.
* In a strip of ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'', Tai is driving with Faye and looking at her and talking about Dora while driving, until Faye shouts at her and tells her that she ran 3 red lights and almost hit an old woman on the sidewalk.
[[/folder]]

The tendency of characters in TV shows or movies who are driving to spend a dangerously long time looking at the person in the passenger seat, rather than out the windshield (or ever at the rear-view mirror, which is almost always gone).

This trope is nearly ubiquitous, so use this section to list [[SubvertedTrope subversions]] and {{lampshade hanging}}s.

* The very concept of DriverFacesPassenger is parodied in ''Film/LastActionHero'', where Jack Slater turns around completely in his seat so that he is almost lying in the back seat and drives the car entirely with his feet, all so he can fire his gun more accurately backwards. He claims that you just need a lot of practice in a low traffic area.

* ''Series/TheComeback,'' starring Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow's character Valerie Cherish is driving along, and then looks in the backseat to talk to her director, Jane, only to have Jane say, "Could you please keep your eyes on the road." Mostly because Jane was in the car during Valerie's previous foray into DriverFacesPassenger, which ended in a car wreck.

* Exaggerated and parodied in one ''BloomCounty'' strip when the guys are on a "Billy and the Boingers" tour. Steve Dallas calls the band together in the back of their van for a meeting, then:

* HaroldLloyd takes the first example to a ridiculous extreme in his silent 1928 comedy ''Speedy''. Playing a NYC cabdriver, he picks up none other than [[TheCameo Babe Ruth]], and is so starstruck that he repeatedly turns around to chat with his hero...while driving through heavy Midtown traffic at a dizzyingly fast speed, much to Ruth's horror.

* ''WhiteCollar'': Lampshaded. Peter had a tendency to lecture Neal while driving and take his eyes off the road, leading to several almost crashes.
* ''TheComeback,'' starring Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow's character Valerie Cherish is driving along, and then looks in the backseat to talk to her director, Jane, only to have Jane say, "Could you please keep your eyes on the road." Mostly because Jane was in the car during Valerie's previous foray into DriverFacesPassenger, which ended in a car wreck.

In RealLife, taking your focus off the road for even the duration of an extended sneezing fit or to answer a phone call or text or try to control misbehaving children in the backseat is a ''major'' cause of serious and fatal (and not-serious as well) accidents, as are other forms of "distracted driving." In fact, distracted driving is even ''more'' likely to actually cause an accident than drunk driving below .12 with the drunk focused on the road, because to a certain degree of intoxication, a drunk can ''actually see'' what is going on around them, if not otherwise distracted, and because distracted driving is far, far more common than drunk driving. If you must do something that will take your full visual focus off the road for more than a few seconds, ''pull over.''

* Kyle Reese in ''Film/TheTerminator'' spends half of the LA car chase yelling exposition in Sarah's face, and the other half driving on sidewalks, into oncoming traffic, screeching to stops, standing up in the driver's seat to fire a gun back over the roof of the car ... although you could argue that since he came from his particular future insane driving is justified for him.
** Subversion, since most of the exposition was given while the car was parked, the rest of the time he looked at the road and didn't bother with anything other than driving and/or shooting.

* In the movie version of ''Sleepwalk With Me,'' Mike Birbiglia narrates most of the movie to the camera (which seems to be pointed at him from the passenger side corner of the windshield) while he drives around. He rarely looks at the road.

* The very concept of HollywoodDriving is parodied in ''Film/LastActionHero'', where Jack Slater turns around completely in his seat so that he is almost lying in the back seat and drives the car entirely with his feet, all so he can fire his gun more accurately backwards. He claims that you just need a lot of practice in a low traffic area.

* ''TheComeback,'' starring Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow's character Valerie Cherish is driving along, and then looks in the backseat to talk to her director, Jane, only to have Jane say, "Could you please keep your eyes on the road." Mostly because Jane was in the car during Valerie's previous foray into HollywoodDriving, which ended in a car wreck.