So you never change the station on the radio?? Or glance down to see what your fuel level is?? Or how fast you were going?? Or read billboards or road signs?? Or even glance in your mirrors to check traffic behind you??? Or look beside you to see if you can change lanes? Or glance in your rear view mirror to see what your kids are doing??
These are all single sensory inputs. Nothing about these examples causes sensory overload. There's no listening, processing, responding involved, like when on a phone, or worse, when texting. This is why listening to the radio is not that distracting. This is why listening to talk shows is slightly more distracting than listening to muzak...you start concentrating on the context of the radio and less on the road.
It's not taking your eyes off the road that is dangerous. It is disconnecting your brain from controlling your vehicle to free it up for other cognitive processes like holding a conversation with somebody you can't see, or reading, thinking of a response, then fumbling around with your virtual keyboard at 50mph.
Sure that car ahead may be 100 feet and I can glance at my mirrors. Sure when I look down at that text message and then don't look up again for 5 seconds because I am (happy/terrified/confused/surprised/interested/responding) to said text and the car 100 feet ahead has stopped, I've just plowed into the back of the car.
Let me guess. You text and drive. A lot. Yes, that's me behind you laying on my horn. Public shame is the only solution to this epidemic.