Our livability rating has plummeted, no surprise, but that's just on paper. The big secret? The Good Life is still alive and well in the Puget Sound region. It just means living it up in your car.

Seems some of us have better things to do in our cars than drive. And the rest of us distract ourselves by spying on folks in adjacent lanes.

Listen to the call-ins as KUOW's "Weekday" considers a proposed law to ban cell-phone use while driving. The call-in question: What's the most dangerous activity you've ever seen someone engage in behind the wheel?

"While riding the bus under the Convention Center one day, I looked down and saw a woman in a little red pickup doing her nails, steering her truck with her knees." (Presumably a shade of polish to match her pickup.)

Others eyewitnesses report shaving-while-driving, examining photographic negatives, slurping spaghetti (what's so bad about that?), having sex and reading the newspaper.

Paul of Seattle, a Teamster truck driver for 20 years, saw a woman changing her pants while zooming down I-5. There oughtta be a law about that, Paul confided to KUOW host Ross Reynolds.

I'm speaking for those of us out here in the Brotherhood. I mean, if you're 80 feet long and 105,000 pounds, it's awfully hard to stop. If she had made one false move, there would have been nothing I could have done.

Sure, Paul, we understand it's hard to control momentum when you've got such a humongous rig. But we'll leave it to public radio to cover the moral, legal and political ramifications of extra-curricular driving.

Here at Pacific Northwest magazine, we care most about style. Make that, $tyle. We're talking about the little luxuries and giddy excesses that make life in your car worth living.

Ask any biogenetics geek you meet while waiting on line for a latte: Whaddya get when you cross high-tech millionaires with clogged highways?

Ecstatic Lexus dealers.

Take the senior sales consultant at the Lynnwood dealership who sells about 50 high-end Lexi a month, never mind the recent slip in the economy.

You wanna relax in your car? The RX300 model ($42,600) has leather seats that recline like chaise lounges, five cupholders within 24 inches of each other and a power outlet in the center console perfect for running a small blender or sun lamp. Stretch out with fruity cocktails and coconut-scented suntan oil while you wait for traffic on the bridge.

Or ratchet up to the top-of-the-line LS430 ($70,400), an ultra-luxury sedan that rockets 0 to 60 mph in 6.3 seconds while passengers sip cool beverages from a back-seat fridge and have their sacrums kneaded by heated, built-in massage rollers. Full-privacy power blinds come standard, of course.

Who buys such cars? "The most normal demographic is Microsoft people," the dealer says. "People who carry clients in the car. Or people who go on long trips with other family members."

Magic Fingers to keep the ol' in-laws happy.

To placate younger relatives, motor to your local auto-electronic accessories shop for a "car theater system" complete with DVD and MP3 players, Nintendo 64, cable, Dolby Digital Surround Sound and integrated on-board navigation. "It's a great electronic baby-sitter," says Car Toys associate Brian Pearce. "One kid can watch a movie while the other plays a video game."

And all for the same low price as vaccinating 100,000 children against measles! Whatever happened to counting VW Beetles?

Actually, Pearce observes, "People say they're buying (the video systems) for kids, but I hardly ever see kids using it. Mostly I see adults climbing in the back seat playing Nintendo."

In the front seat, fun comes disguised in the form of safety and navigation. A night-vision screen on high-end Cadillacs ($47,000-$51,000) uses infrared technology to project a black-and-white telescoped image onto your windshield so you can see the road five times farther ahead than what's illuminated by your headlights. Night Vision is best at showing living things, explains Brad Brotherton, manager of Brotherton Cadillac, not cold objects like road signs.

What about road kill?

"Depends how long it's been dead."

If this inspires dreams about off-road excursions, Land Rover sales associates (you'll recognize them by their cargo shorts and fly-fishing vests) promise their vehicles ($34,000-$70,000) are "the most luxurious tanks you could ever drive."

Range Rovers come with off-road gearing, a device that cranks the car higher (for crossing rocky streams), and a nifty video to pop into the back-seat VCR.

Range Rovers come with off-road gearing, a device that cranks the car higher (for crossing rocky streams), and a nifty video to pop into the back-seat VCR.

The video starts with grass-skirt natives and mud-stained Rovers bumping across a jungle gorge before cutting to bland Dockers-clad boomers who look like they've read all the manuals but never enjoyed a spontaneous moment in their Rover or anywhere else.

"Most of them are using it like their Volvo or Mercedes or any other car," says the Seattle sales and leasing associate. "Some get them all set up for The Expedition. Do they go on it? In their mind, it opens up new possibilities. But I'd say only 2 or 3 percent (of international sales) actually go over to Siberia."

Here's the reality: Commute to work, pick up the kids, find a place to eat.

Why not have a fling with electronic wizardry? Inject high-tech panache!

With a Global Positioning System linked to a gyroscope, speed sensor, hands-free cell-phone and DVD player, you can find the nearest ATM or yoga studio using voice commands.

Your whims will launch journeys.

Install the right gadgets in your car, and you, too, will experience Leather-Seated-Cyber-Space Road Trips. (These are not boomer LSD flashbacks, but rather, genuine digital sequences made possible by acid-etched computer chips.)

Crave shrimp masala while stuck on the 520 bridge?

Shout "Restaurants!"

Shazaam! The flags of India, Italy, France, Thailand and Japan appear on a touch screen. (Quick, what does the Indian flag look like?) Press the flag that's saffron, white and green with a wheel in the center. Punch a button to have your phone automatically dial a local Indian restaurant. Make a hands-free reservation and, before you know it, your on-board navigation system instructs you, "Two blocks ahead, make a left turn at the light."

Yes, it's a woman's voice. "She's in her 30s with a short haircut," says our friendly Lexus dealer. "Perky professional woman. Doesn't sound naked or anything. "

That's good. Wouldn't want to have to make a law.

Pacific Northwest staff writer Paula Bock could live anywhere but in her car.