COLUMN ONE : Gadgets to Cope With Gridlock : Commuters are filling their cars with devices from portable fax machines to TVs to take advantage of their time on the road.

Squandering time in traffic? Not Bruce McGowan.

When the San Clemente computer operator hits the road each day steeled for a 90-minute commute to Chino, he totes all manner of gadgets to ensure drive time doesn’t become wasted time.

Strapped to the passenger seat is a handy nylon pocket organizer stuffed with highlighter pens, cassette tapes and paper work. As traffic trickles to a stop, McGowan whips out a wooden plank he has fashioned into a portable desk and performs office chores amid the gridlock.

When the idling pack begins to poke along again, McGowan might even flip on two tapes at once: a self-help tape on a portable recorder gets his attention, while soft background music croons from the car’s built-in cassette player.

“Essentially, I spend about three hours a day on the road,” McGowan observed one recent afternoon before heading off into the ozone. “That’s a significant amount of time to be wasted, so I try to make the most of it.”

Just like McGowan, motorists in the Southland and across the nation are turning to a ready remedy for their traffic woes. Don’t worry, they say. Get gadgets.

Like never before, commuters are filling their cars with all the comforts--and distractions--of home and office. Gone are the days when a wide-bottom coffee mug on the dash seemed exotic. Today, drivers have taken to outfitting their cars with a glitzy array of auto accessories--mobile fax machines, bucket seat massaging devices, portable refrigerators that plug into a car’s cigarette lighter, even high-resolution mini-TVs.

“It certainly seems to be a growing trend,” said Alan Pisarski, a Washington transportation policy consultant and author of “Commuting in America,” an analysis of the nation’s changing commute patterns in recent decades. “It’s there because people want to make better use of their time. Who is it that said Americans feel guilty doing only one thing at a time? This is an outgrowth.”

And why not? With commute times ballooning in urban areas throughout the nation, motorists are increasingly looking for new ways to better use those agonizing hours spent behind the steering wheel or in a passenger seat.

In Los Angeles and Orange Counties, delays caused by traffic congestion have been increasing 15% a year, while the San Francisco Bay Area is seeing the gridlock grow by 25% annually, state transportation experts say. Commute times for many motorists are surging well above an hour on each leg of the trip between home and work.

“I remember when you could get anywhere in L.A. in 30 minutes,” said Perry Soloman, president of High Technology Distributing, a Van Nuys firm that markets mobile office products. “Now that same trip can take three hours if there’s one traffic accident. The dynamics of the traffic patterns create a need for products that weren’t available just a few years ago.”

Some corporate trend-watchers figure the proliferation of gadgetry will only continue. Campbell Soup Co., for one, predicts that by the year 2000 one in four cars will feature microwave ovens.

“We want to indulge ourselves in our cars,” said David Hillburn, a Rancho Palos Verdes-based independent marketing analyst who specializes in the auto industry. “But it remains unclear whether this concept will explode. There’s a fine line between entertaining yourself in your car and having some goofy gadget.”

It’s not all fun and games. Some highway safety experts fear that all that faxing and dialing and TV watching poses a serious accident risk.

Although authorities say no statistics are compiled on crashes caused by gadget-induced inattention, several examples have made headlines in recent years. In 1986, four bicyclists were killed along a scenic road near Gilroy in Northern California when an 18-year-old woman reached for a cassette tape in the back seat and plowed into them.

“People forget that driving a car demands 100% of their attention,” said Peter O’Rourke, director of the California Office of Traffic Safety. “You can’t give 100% when you’re making a fax transmission . . . or typing a letter on your personal computer.”

In some cases, use of gadgets behind the wheel is illegal. Watching television, operating a computer terminal or wearing stereo headphones in the driver’s seat is prohibited. But there are no restrictions on cellular phones, even though a 1987 study commissioned by the California Highway Patrol found that manual dialing was “significantly more hazardous” than gazing down to tune a radio.

“Attention is a limited resource. You can only spread it out so far before you start missing things,” said Fred Owens, a psychologist specializing in human perception and traffic safety at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “As a general principle, that’s why I’m concerned when a driver’s world becomes even more complicated than it already is.”

Generally undaunted by such warnings, commuters have continued to splurge on a plethora of products, and marketeers have leaped at the opportunity to supply them.

Nationwide outfits like The Sharper Image are stuffing their catalogues with goodies for motorists, while mavens of the high-end gadget market at Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories have increasingly shifted their product lines to capture the commuter.

Recently, an Emeryville, Calif., firm--Commuter Products Corp.-- distributed a 24-page catalogue nationally featuring nothing but items aimed at commuters.

“A lot of people commuting in cars wish they could do something besides just driving,” said the company’s president, Mabel Yee.

Yee, who predicts her company will be recording $200 million in annual sales within a decade, added, “People are trying to replicate their homes. If you’re sitting there in traffic, you might as well make the ride just a little bit more comfortable.”

Bob Johnson, a marketing manager for Pacific Bell who has studied the trend toward auto gadgetry, likens it to the nesting phenomenon of young families, often referred to as “cocooning.” He calls it “car-cooning.”

“It’s a social change that has swept over the baby boomers of the nation. They’ve acquired material goods to build a fortress or wall to protect themselves from the pressures of the outside world,” Johnson said. “The analysis I’ve done tells me that people faced with these long commutes are interested in extending that same type of environment in their homes to their cars.”

It’s not unique to the West Coast. Arnie Quirion keeps his mind occupied during his stop-and-go, one-hour commute through the sprawling suburbs east of Washington by jotting thoughts on a special note pad attached to his steering wheel or listening to books on tape.

“I turn a very unproductive hour into a productive hour,” said Quirion, a hotel manager in Tysons Corner, Va. “My theory on commuting is it’s not so much the drive that’s the problem. The real issue is the time wasted. It’s not too useful to spend an hour reading the guy’s license plate in front of you.”

But while the gadget vendors sell across the nation and in several foreign countries, the firms say they reap most of their revenue from the golden gridlock of California.

“It seems people on the West Coast have a greater interest,” said Bruce Blackway, owner of 12 Volt Products of Holland, Pa., a mail-order company that specializes in gadgets that plug into a cigarette lighter. “There’s a lot of cars, a lot of long commutes.”

Blackway’s firm and the other outfits feature an astounding menu of products.

There is a doughnut-shaped inflatable stereo neck rest that fits around a commuter’s neck, holding a road-weary head aloft while playing a tune. Also available are a solar panel that can recharge a dead battery and a strap-on eye mask that purportedly relieves stress and strain by massaging the eyeballs. It’s not recommended for drivers.

Add to the list all sorts of kitchen devices that can be plugged into a lighter: blenders, coffee makers, single-slice toasters, popcorn makers. Auto-gadget firms also stock plug-in curling irons, electric shavers, even a portable washing machine.

A garden-variety Garfield doll with suction-paws could get lost in the crowd.

And, of course, for those who want to dive into a good novel while crawling with traffic along the San Diego Freeway, there’s the burgeoning “books on tape” market. In recent years, sales of the tapes have exploded, creating a $100-million a year industry that executives say is growing between 25% and 50% annually.

Some people buy gadgets for urban survival. Lee Wygand, an accountant with Weyerhaeuser Mortgage Co. in Canoga Park, was getting sick of the smog during her 50-minute commute, so she purchased a portable air ionizer.

“It’s really nifty how it works--it lightens up the air,” Wygand said. But she confesses to thinking that most gadgets seem “sort of gimmicky. Some things are for people who just have money to burn.”

Consider, for instance, a radio-controlled gizmo that can start a car from 400 feet away with the flick of a red button on a small black box. Commuter Products Corp. retails it for $329.95. For $379.95, the firm will sell the XPRES’R, an electronic signboard that can be set on the rear window panel and programmed with a hand-held control to deliver pithy messages like, “I’m Going As Fast As I Can,” “Let’s Do Lunch,” or even spicier thoughts.

In-car electronics are big these days. For the truly adventurous, there are items like the Whistler Interstate Travel Computer. This calculator-sized device, its makers boast, can with the touch of a few buttons ante up a road atlas-sized list of more than 30,000 gas stations, motels, restaurants and other services at more than 13,700 exits along every major highway in the continental United States.

Cellular phones, meanwhile, have become as ubiquitous a part of the Southern California landscape as the fender-bender. There are about 3 million cellular users nationwide, and market analysts predict that number will explode to 10 million by 1993. In the Southland, 275,000 cars are equipped with cellular phones, analysts say.

Sales of portable fax machines, which typically carry a price tag exceeding $1,000 for the industry leaders, could grow by a hefty 300% in the next few years, some analysts predict.

“To be competitive in the ‘90s, one needs to have these tools,” said Susan Curtis, Woodland Hills-based publisher of Mobile Office, a glossy new magazine for users of portable office devices.

Auto sound systems, of course, have achieved the status of an art form in some parts of the Los Angeles Basin. Surveys reveal that many auto buyers are willing to pay 10% of a new car’s sticker price just for an audio system, one analyst said.

The true electronic connoisseur can hit places like Audio Chamber International in Buena Park, where Richard Shen and his high-tech team can fix you up with a voice-activated car phone, windshield wipers that operate automatically when it rains or a stereo system with compact-disc player, amplifiers and a price tag from $1,000 to $50,000.

You name it, they’ll do it. One time Shen stuffed 56 speakers into a Mercedes, completely stripping and re-upholstering the car’s interior to fit all the electronics.

“For a lot of people, it’s a little bit of a walk on the wild side,” Shen said. “I think most Americans really appreciate their vehicles . . . and there are people who can pay for it.”

George Watkin, an orthopedic surgeon in San Bernardino, can do without all the extravagances--he just wanted to keep ketchup off his pants. Watkin bought a “Road Hog commuter apron,” a vinyl-covered ensemble featuring a rigid lap tray and cup holder.

“People used to laugh at me because I’d use a beach towel,” Watkin confessed. “Now they laugh at me because of this thing. But I’m a gadget freak and it keeps my clothes clean.”

Not everyone, of course, is bullish on such gizmos.

“So many of these products seem to be sort of Hula-Hoop-ish,” said William Tichy, a San Francisco financial analyst with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. “I think a lot of them are more faddish than real. The cost-to-benefit is relatively poor, so these gadgets aren’t worth it for a lot of people.”

Automotive executives in Detroit, meanwhile, have historically been reluctant to offer too many contraptions as built-in options. Officials at Chrysler, for instance, remember how the firm gambled in the mid-1950s by introducing 45-speed record players in some models, but the concept didn’t stick.

Undaunted, the auto maker has just introduced the “Visorphone,” a hands-off cellular unit built into the driver’s sun visor. Ford now offers a similar system in some models, while the Cadillac division of General Motors has one featuring a microphone in the mirror of the 1990 Allante.

What else does the future hold? One free-lance inventor has already come up with a heads-up television display, but the idea must overcome safety concerns and anti-TV laws in dozens of states. Already there’s an electronic navigation system featuring a video map. Two other firms plan to market an anti-theft system that would allow a car to be tracked by authorities.

Congestion is “going to get worse on the road,” said Andrew Cohen, president of Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories, “so people will continue to dream up things to sell people who are stuck in traffic.”

OUTFITTING YOUR CAR FOR THE DAILY COMMUTE 1. Radar detector: $395 2. Remote car starter: $330 3. Door ding protector: $40 4. Back massager: $80 5. Headrest speakers: $70 6. Fax/phone machine: $1,600 7. Portable car alarm: $150 8. Miniature television: $350 9. Refrigerator: $120 10. Solar battery charger: $60 11. Gas tank in spare tire: $80 12. Message sign board: $380 Note: Prices are all approximate, based on various automobile catalogs.