We believe that the living room-mentality that many Americans get into while driving--that being the idea that because their cars are privately-owned objects an owner can do virtually whatever he/she wants inside the car while driving on a road--is due to a larger social-psychological/cultural phenomena connected to privatism; further enhanced by suburban privatism.

Privatism--the old American desire to have one's "own [private] slice of the pie" w/ a front-yard, rear-yard, garage, etc.--is the main idea that built the suburbs. Post-WWII nuclear-scare era thinking further propelled the planning/development of suburban planning; which built isolation and radical privatism into urban design. Low-density suburbs, where homes were built far away from the workplace, allowed automobiles to flourish and even facilitated automobile dependency. Automobiles, and mainstream-America's fascination w/ automobiles, is a physical extension of the ideas of privatism.

One of the problems of suburban privatism is that when in privately-owned automobiles, many motorists act like they're still in their own private living room, where they can casually make phone-calls, eat food, take pills, send emails, shave or put on makeup. These things are normal to do in living rooms (or bathrooms) and fine to do when in private-automobiles while on private-property (such as a driveway). However, when the 3,000 lb metal private-automobile and the motorist controlling it venture onto a public-road, those above-mentioned behaviors need to be curbed—most importantly, for the safety of other innocent road users (especially cyclists, who are particularly vulnerable).