Driving

Logging all those miles in a car may seem seem like a waste of time, but it depends on what you do. If you use that time effectively, you can skim hours in your otherwise busy day and make room for other indulgences. Here are some tips to make over your commute.

Pack a snack: Instead of grabbing that 500-calorie muffin on your way into work, bring a healthy breakfast. We're fond of these easy-to-carry recipes. You can use traffic time to enjoy your meal and save time. Eating before you get to work will also keep your metabolic rate up and glucose levels steady. If you're heading home, bring an apple or trail mix with you to ward off predinner urges. This will keep both your hunger and your road rage at bay.

Keep tennis shoes in the car: Whether you're parking a mile away or considering a lunchtime walk, having the right shoes close by will keep excuses to a minimum and help kick your body into gear for easy motivation. Even better: if you have a gym near your office, pack the whole bag, complete with clothes and an iPod. Take it a step further by practicing this yoga made for the car.

Have a heart-to-heart: While you're decompressing from the day, call one of your friends to catch up. Talking to someone you're close to can lift your spirits and also help energize you to do something healthy, even after work. Just be sure you use a hands-free device so you can keep your focus on the road.

Listen to something beneficial: Your surroundings can have a positive effect on your mood. Try playing mellow music to reduce traffic nerves, listening to an audiobook you want to read but don't have time for, or enjoying a news station to stay informed. This way you can kill two birds with one stone and use the lag time to your advantage.

Texting while driving is banned in 30 states, but have you ever snuck in an SMS while you were behind the wheel? The answer for most of us is no, but people are in fact still texting on the sly, and it's leading to more fatalities and accidents than before the ban, according to a new study.

When people try to hide their texting from the police they tend to lower their phones to their laps, the study says, which means no eyes on the road for longer periods of time. That translates to an increased chance of crashing; the accident rates in three of the states they studied rose after the law was in place. Last year, there were almost 450,000 accidents and 5,474 deaths due to distracted driving.

The government, however, is not giving up; US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he is confident that the texting ban will work in the future, once it is enforced "effectively." So instead of trying to outsmart the cops, keep your cell phone tucked safely away and try my top five texting-while-driving alternatives.

Source: Flickr User mrJasonWeaver

Even though most people agree that certain types of technology and driving don't mix, when it comes to being on the road, there are ways to take advantage of tech. Case in point: a driving-centric dating site. Now there's another site aimed at drivers, though this one seems more likely used as a way to take out your frustrations on another driver. Bump is a new site and iPhone app devoted to helping drivers communicate.

To use it, register with the site, including your license plate number and state. Then, if you'd like to send a message to another driver, simply enter her license plate and state. If the driver's registered with the site, she'll receive your message. Find out more about the site (and why I think it's a bad idea) after the jump.

Over the weekend, I took a road trip down the California coast to Big Sur — a prime spot for road tripping. While filling up our gas tank at a tiny gas station along the way, I started talking to a guy pumping gas into a huge rented RV as he joked about it costing more than $100 to fill his tank (it did!). "I wish I would have known how expensive this gas would have been before I started," he said.

Now, there's a quick way to find out. Get more details on today's Website of the Day after the jump.

Unfortunately, the photo on the right is not a good representation of what people do behind the wheel. A recent study performed by research firm Lindberg International says that five percent of drivers play video games while behind the wheel. But wait, there's more — as shocking as this stat sounds, here's another: a whopping 15 percent of drivers admit to having sex while navigating a vehicle! Amazing!

The study surveyed 300 people (spanning countries like the US, Japan, France, and the UK), and while both of these activities can be pleasurable, they are both extremely dangerous pastimes while flying down the freeway at high speeds. Want to know what else participants do while driving? Find out after the break.