History Main / DriverFacesPassenger

* In the film ''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.

->''"I swear you'll be the first patient in ER with airbag rash on the back of his head."''

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. [[SincerityMode If you must do something that will take your full visual focus off the road for more than a few seconds, ''pull over.'']]

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.''

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': In a season 3 flashback, we see that Karen Page accidentally killed her brother this way. After shooting her drug-dealing boyfriend Todd to stop him from beating Kevin with a tire iron (after Kevin decided to burn down Todd's trailer), she gets Kevin in the car and drives off. She's high, strung out, and angry at Kevin for choosing to confront Todd in attempt to get him away from Karen. The whole time, Karen keeps looking at Kevin, who is bleeding from where Todd punched him. Unfortunately, she keeps her eyes off the road too long to realize she's drifting out of her lane until Kevin suddenly shouts "WATCH OUT!" Karen looks back just as the car hits the guardrail of a small bridge with its right wheels. The car is launched into the air and flips over three times before coming to a rest on its roof. Karen survives the accident with minor cuts and scrapes, but Kevin breaks his neck and is killed instantly. In the aftermath, Karen's father disowns her and shoos her out of town.

* ''Film/XXx'': When he drives Senator Hotchkiss's Corvette, Xander speaks into several cameras facing anywhere but backwards.

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* ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'': does this rather too often when driving the Mark III and talking to Penfold in the passanger seat. And DM only has one eye to keep on the road/sky!

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': In a season 3 flashback, we see that Karen Page accidentally killed her brother this way. After shooting her drug-dealing boyfriend Todd to stop him from beating Kevin with a tire iron, she gets Kevin in the car and drives off. She's high, strung out, and angry at Kevin for choosing to confront Todd in attempt to get him away from Karen. The whole time, Karen keeps looking at Kevin, who is bleeding from where Todd punched him. Unfortunately, she keeps her eyes off the road too long to realize she's drifting out of her lane until Kevin suddenly shouts "WATCH OUT!" Karen looks back just as the car hits the guardrail of a small bridge with its right wheels. The car is launched into the air and flips over three times before coming to a rest on its roof. Karen survives the accident with minor cuts and scrapes, but Kevin breaks his neck and is killed instantly. In the aftermath, Karen's father disowns her and basically shoos her out of town.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Karen Page's brother died because of Karen taking her eyes off the road during an argument with him right before they were to cross a bridge, causing her to lose control and hit the guardrail, flipping the car over.

* Happens in a ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'', while Jerry and Kramer are in an ambulance taking George to the hospital. The two paramedics get out to have a fight and afterwards, the remaining one is arguing with Jerry and Kramer as they yell at him for leaving the man in the street. When the man threatens to fight with ''them'', they respond by screaming at him to watch the road. He continues to scream.
. and we cut to black as we hear the sound of a crash. The closing credits play over the three of them in the hospital with bruises and neck braces.

* In ''Film/ShotCaller'', Frank is driving tipsy with three passengers. He looks back to fist bump his friend, and crashes almost immediately. It only gets worse from there.

* Lloyd drives a limo like this in ''Film/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.

* 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 Scott's insurance. In other words, Scott was kicked off the show by his own nominator--in the ''second episode'', no less!

* 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 [[spoiler:the hitchhiker surrenders and drops his knife out the window]].

* In ''Supernatural'' Dean and Sam often talk whilst driving, wherein Dean will look at Sam whilst he talks for very long periods of time. There has only been one crash, however, whilst Sam was driving and talking to John.

* Subverted in ''KnightAndDay''. Tom Cruise spends a scene in a car, on the highway, at night, and almost the entire time is looking at the female protagonist and explaining the plot of the movie to her. Once they're all caught up, they both lean back in their seats to get some sleep - whereupon the camera pans back to reveal the car they're in is on a larger tow rig that Cruise had been looking at earlier.

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school. As a reckless sixteen year old driver, he, of course, looks at Miss Brooks instead of looking at the road. On one occasion, Miss Brooks had to grab the wheel and steer in order to prevent an accident.

* Averted in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'': Susan carries on a conversation with Sarah during which she actually [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1089 points to (bits of) Sarah]] but never turns her head and rarely takes her eyes off the road ahead. In fact, there is only one panel of [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1093 one strip]] set in the car where Susan faces Sarah and, in [[TheRant the commentary]] of that strip, Dan rails against the idea of this trope.