According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the average time spent distracted by a text message is 4.6 seconds. Doesn’t sound like a lot, does it? But at highway speeds, in that time you will travel further than the length of a football field. Which explains why one in ten fatal accidents in the United States is caused by cell phone distraction.

To illustrate the impact 4.6 seconds can make, we created the NX 4.6, a one-of-a kind Lexus that features the world’s first 360-degree blind spot. We equipped it with electrochromic tinted glass capable of going from transparent to opaque instantaneously, completely obscuring the driver’s view for 4.6 seconds. Then, we asked unsuspecting volunteers to drive it through a course lined with obstacles.

The result? 

It took them precisely 4.6 seconds to understand viscerally how unsafe texting and driving really is. And while their reactions were as entertaining as they were sobering, our ambition was not to entertain, it was to challenge all drivers to change their behavior.