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Drivers have never had so many distractions tempting them to take their eyes off the road and their hands off the wheel. Talking on cellphones and typing text messages while driving has already led to bans in many states. But now auto companies, likening their latest models to living rooms on the road, are turning cars into cocoons of communication systems and high-tech entertainment.

Some drivers are packing their car interiors with G.P.S. navigation screens, portable DVD players and even computer keyboards and printers.

State Senator Carl L. Marcellino of New York learned this firsthand while riding in a cab in Miami — the driver was watching a boxing match on a television mounted on the dashboard.

"I can understand a monitor in the rear, but up front it is a different world," said Mr. Marcellino, who sponsored a bill last year to ban all "display generating devices" in the driver’s view. New York already has a law against TV sets in the front seat.

"The driver shouldn’t be doing anything other than driving," Mr. Marcellino said.

Motorists have always engaged in risky behavior, whether it is eating a sandwich, arguing with a spouse, applying makeup or studying a map while speeding down the interstate.

But safety experts say the influx of electronics is turning cars into sometimes chaotic — and distracting — moving family rooms.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 80 percent of vehicle crashes and 65 percent of close calls are caused in part by driver distraction.

And some devastating accidents have drawn further attention to the dangers. Last June, five teenage girls were driving to a vacation home in upstate New York when their sport utility vehicle crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer, killing all of them.

The police later learned from phone records that the driver had been typing text messages on her phone just before she swerved out of her lane. Toxicology tests ruled out alcohol and drugs as possible causes. The rise in distraction-related accidents is chilling to auto-safety advocates who typically study air bags and rollovers.

"If we don’t do something about it, you’re looking at a situation that could rival drunk driving as a risk factor in crashes," said Clarence M. Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington.

Automakers do not argue with bans that prohibit the use of hand-held phones while driving. Still, they are rushing headlong to equip vehicles with hands-free systems and elaborate navigation devices that can also deliver sports scores and the location of the nearest Chinese restaurant.

The companies say they are responding to consumer demand, not to mention the hefty profits that electronic options generate. At least one top Detroit auto executive has compared outfitting cars with creature comforts to furnishing a home.

Chrysler advertises its Dodge Grand Caravan minivan as a mobile "family room," and Robert L. Nardelli, Chrysler’s chairman and a former Home Depot chief executive, likes the comparison.

"I think a vehicle today has to be your most favorite room under your roof," Mr. Nardelli said last October at a magazine publishers’ conference. "It has to bring you gratification; it has to be tranquil. It’s incidental that it gets you from Point A to Point B, right?"

That assertion left Anne T. McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, almost speechless. "I don’t even know how to respond to that," she said. "There’s just overwhelming evidence that distraction is a crash risk."

The evidence cited most often by safety experts involved 100 cars and 42,000 hours of driving time monitored by in-vehicle cameras and sensors over a one-year period in northern Virginia and the Washington area.

The study, conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and released in 2006, found that "secondary task distraction" was a central factor in auto accidents. The biggest culprit was hand-held wireless devices, along with the act of dialing phone numbers or sending text messages.

"Texting is really bad, and so is dialing a cellphone, using your BlackBerry or manipulating through an iPod menu," said Thomas A. Dingus, one of the principal investigators in the study.

But, Mr. Dingus added, any activity that takes a driver’s eyes off the road for even a couple of seconds can cause a crash.

Devices that can cause such inattention to the road include sophisticated guidance systems that alert drivers to the nearest Starbucks and cheapest gas stations, and stereo systems that connect to portable MP3 players, Mr. Dingus said.