My horn usage has gone way up. Driving stick in the US you have to pay attention to be in gear at the right time. In the past 10 years I've seen it get exponentially worse as people put their heads down coming up to a red light. Laws are written but not enforced. Friends and relatives die from drunk or distracted driving and it's frustrating because even though driving is a privileged and not a right people with multiple DUIs get back behind the wheel. Honestly, texting and driving should have as strict punishments as a DUI and I know that's an unpopular stance.
Probably more unpopular, I think it should have worse punishment than DUI. Or maybe both need to get worse punishment equally? Texting and driving to me is the ultimate sign of vanity. A person is knowingly breaking the law, and putting their own desire for instant communication/social media above the lives of others. As in, 'me posting to instagram is more important than whether you live or die'. I'm hoping most don't feel that way, but their behavior says otherwise...
Cyclist here. I've heard multiple other cyclists say things along the lines of "my life is not worth 15 second of your time". Typically in response to drivers making rather bad driving decisions, e.g., passing a cyclist too closely, that often don't actually lead to much time savings. It's the same logic. The benefit is much smaller than the cost, but the cost is typically paid by someone else.
You're assuming they made a conscious decision, as in the thought actually crossed their mind that "this might not be a good idea." I'd wager the thought never crossed their distracted mind. They're chasing dopamine rushes. In fact, I doubt many are making conscious decisions to pick up their phone and look at it. It's automatic at this point. They've programmed themselves.
Have you ever watched someone sitting alone lately? It's like this nervous tick happens where they get irritated and uncomfortable if they don't check their phone every 5 minutes. There is no attention span. We've programmed it out.
It's amazing how fast we went from "talking on or looking at your cell-phone in public for any length of time, or frequently, is something only self-important dicks do", to the point that we could use such behavior as universally-understood shorthand in fiction for "this character is a self-important dick", to its being totally normal. I'm pretty sure the gap was bridged in about five years. Crazy.
I remain skeptical that the switch from "the Internet exists at some physical locations, you must go to one to use the Internet" to "the Internet exists at all physical locations all of the time" was anywhere near being a net (haha) gain for our collective wellbeing.
"They've programmed themselves." - Isn't there evidence that the apps (like fbk and msgr, others) - and phones (apple) have been programmed to create this like - dopamine - want - get - more - behavior (?)
Supreme court is now allowing people to sue gun manufacturers when people use their tools improperly (at least in one case) - it won't take a top 10 law firm to copy the tactics deployed there and convince jury's that big tech was taking advantage of lil johnny and lil mary who are not that smart - and they were using the devices and apps as intended - as so they should be liable for the pain, suffering, deaths, etc
right? (not a lawyer, but I'd go that route for that kind of ambulance chasing maybe)
I think both ought to carry a permanent lifetime ban on owning, operating, and possessing any sort of motor vehicle. You've demonstrated your willingness to kill people through your negligence, you will not have another opportunity to do so.
Permanent? For touching your cell phone? With no consideration of the circumstances? A mandatory minimum sentence of permanent removal of driving privileges for touching a phone?
How do you define touching the phone? Can you imagine some circumstances where that shouldn’t be a permanent removal of driving privileges?
For distracted/technologically impaired driving, which in my mind is using technology in some empirically-defined unsafe manner. How we would determine that threshold is something we as a society would have to determine, but I would hope that we would use evidence-based processes to make that determination.
They may stop being distracted at some point, but I can assure you that it's not when the light turns green. Every single day I see many people staring at their phones while hurtling down the highway at 70 mph.
>completely focused who's slightly above the legal limit
This may not be possible. One of the effects of alcohol on cognition is that it increases distractability while simultaneously making you less aware of it's occurrence which is a compounding issue.
That's right, any amount of alcohol reduces awareness and increases reaction time.
I think what the poster meant is that while a person driving under influence might be slightly distracted (there is full spectrum of being under influence) the person fidgeting with a phone is always very distracted.
You can't be only slightly distracted when you are not looking at the road but reading or replying to message.
Where I live, we have a charge called "care and control of a vehicle" which I think should be applied to both drunk and distracted driving.
We do have "driving while intoxicated" (which covers alcohol and drugs - controlled, illicit or medical) and "distracted driving" (which covers everything from lighting a cigarette to adjusting your radio, to talking on your phone, to turning around to high-five the passenger in the back seat).
I'm not recommending removing those charges. I'm advocating that the charges should be made stiffer by adding "care and control of a vehicle" on top of the dwi or distracted driving charges.
That way, there are more points taken off your license, and it gets even more expensive to deal with in court (or jail, as the case may be). The tools are there for us, but we don't use them as effectively as we could.
> even though driving is a privileged and not a right
I would like to agree but in reality the vast majority of the population get a driver's license (and drive on the regular) and you have to fuck up really badly to lose it.
For better or for worse, most of our built environment is absolutely dependent on driving so society as a whole is way too lenient on drivers and their statistical externalities.
Driving is treated as a revocable right, not as a privilege.
This more than anything is a good example of self-driving cars actually increasing safety in the net even if there will be loss of life from algorithm failures. Self-driving cars can be put in situations they don't understand but they don't lose focus, don't drive angry, etc.
You must not actually drive stick then. The only time I can see myself being able to text while driving stick is on the highway and even then I wouldn’t really be comfortable doing so.
When I used to drive auto I could literally have my phone in my right hand with my left hand on the wheel at all times if I wanted to...
Driven stick my whole life. Maybe it's just that I have large hands, but I don't need to put stuff down while shifting.
The hard part of texting while driving stick is taking your eyes off the road, not having three things to manipulate with only two hands. That's like saying it's impossible for humans to drive stick because there are three pedals but only two feet.
What's your driving style like? I imagine the people who accelerate as quickly as their car is capable of, consistently drive 15-20 over the speed limit, often have to speed up and slow down and dodge between lanes will have to shift a lot more than the rest of us.
It just strikes me as weird that other people think it's impossible to drive stick and text at the same time. Sure you can't do it safely, but that's nothing to do with the transmission.
>you must not actually drive stick then. The only time I can see myself being able to text while driving stick is on the highway and even then I wouldn’t really be comfortable doing so.
He probably just drives something made in the last ~15yr. In a modern vehicle the power band is wide enough that you have about 3 gears that can be used in any given situation and the gear shift is basically a 6-way toggle switch. You could definitely use your phone if you wanted to.
I used to eat a bagel on my way to work in stop and go traffic with my gear shift hand and that's in a 25yo vehicle with a really long shifter and such little power you really only have one good gear for a given situation. In a vehicle like that it is much harder to be distracted and drive comfortably.
You don't need your hand on the phone constantly to text, so I don't see why you couldn't both shift and text.
My first car didn't have cup holders, and I remember managing to drive while holding a cup of soda or a shake when bring food back from fast food drive-throughs, holding the cup the entire trip. It was stick and I had no problem doing this.
With a phone, I'd expect you could just set it down between messages, which should make it easier than carrying those cups was. Setting those down risked spilling them.
It's very difficult to text and drive, driving stick you require far, far more attention to speed/gear/etc at all times. When I drive a stick car I can't doze off, I can't really go on mental autopilot like when I drive an automatic car. This is coming from someone who drove stick for 10 years, now driving an automatic vehicle. - Personal Anecdote.
You're correct, but if you don't want to be that guy you generally want to notice the light is about to change and get into 1st gear. Vs head down facebooking waiting for the honk to step on the gas.
As a cyclist I'm elevated above most drivers on the road. So I can see many distracted drivers who try to be more subtle about it. Distracted driving is a daily problem, but there's almost no enforcement of it.
I can recall one time where I talked to a driver stopped at a stoplight about how he wasn't paying attention and couldn't stay in his lane. I told him to put down the phone and watch the road. This driver tried to change the subject, acting outraged that before he passed me I left the bike lane for less than 10 seconds to pass another cyclist. I told him that's not illegal but he wasn't having any of it. Apparently I'm just as bad as he is, which makes his distracted driving okay. Except that what I did was legal and perfectly safe, yet what he did was illegal and rather dangerous.
On the occasions I've felt I needed to glance at my phone while driving, I've held it up and in front of me so I still had peripheral vision of the road. People using their phone and doing so from their lap or console, not to mention actually interacting with the phone... I can't even....
One time I switched lanes rather abruptly as the person in front of me was erratically speeding up and slowing down. (No, I wasn't tailgating; I think they were drunk or maybe having an argument.) The person in the next lane apparently got pissed that I merged so closely behind him and a few blocks later pulled up alongside me to yell. I apologized. From his perspective it was a dick move; I got it. The look of shock on his face when I apologized was priceless; he almost looked dejected.
People get so self-defensive; it doesn't make any sense. It's like people turn 18 and stop growing up. Their loss, I guess.
Whenever someone cuts me off or wanders into my lane, rather than getting angry I try to remind myself that that's me during an inattentive moment, which we all have regularly. We just don't realize when we have them because, well, we're distracted.
> On the occasions I've felt I needed to glance at my phone while driving, I've held it up and in front of me so I still had peripheral vision of the road. People using their phone and doing so from their lap or console, not to mention actually interacting with the phone... I can't even....
You're right. The lap people are worse because they are trying to hide what they are doing in a way that makes it more dangerous!
> I apologized. From his perspective it was a dick move; I got it. The look of shock on his face when I apologized was priceless; he almost looked dejected.
As a cyclist I talk to a lot of drivers. I'd guess, just based on my intuition, that about 1/3 of drivers will apologize outright for dangerous driving when I talk to them. I'm not surprised this would disappoint some people but I think it's the right response. I myself have tried to get better about pausing to evaluate my situation when I've been accused of doing something bad and apologizing if necessary. It takes practice.
> On the occasions I've felt I needed to glance at my phone while driving, I've held it up and in front of me so I still had peripheral vision of the road. People using their phone and doing so from their lap or console, not to mention actually interacting with the phone... I can't even....
I'm not sure if it really matters that much. Humans are very bad at paying attention to more than one thing. It's the attention that really matters, not so much the vision. Besides, peripheral vision essentially just tracks movements, and traffic is always moving regardless.
I suspect that if there is a difference at all, it will be smaller than you'd expect.
Everyone gets defensive about their culpability on the roads...it's the same in online gaming or work. If you point out what someone's doing wrong, especially if they have no relationship to you, most self-conscious, ego-centric people will react defensively and rudely.
I sometimes ride 100+ miles a week, so me moving out of the Bay Area probably extended my lifespan by a good 5-10 years.
Seriously the drivers in that area are so terrible, with Uber drivers taking it a step higher. For the average cyclist, it’s a matter of when, not if they will get hit.
I'm not keen on the Bay Area anyway but I'll keep that in mind when moving.
Also not surprised about ride share drivers. A few months ago I had one try to attack me with a screwdriver! Helmet cam video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trSB3mK78bs (I believe the guy has been arrested now, not sure though as he might have skipped town.)
(Yes, I've heard that I should not confront drivers, but I think on a whole me doing so has led to greater understanding between cyclists and drivers. In this case the Uber driver nearly hit me head on, probably because they were distracted. If anyone thinks I was rude to the driver in any way, I'm interested in learning why.)
Right now I'm in Austin but don't intend to stay here long term. While people say driving is terrible everywhere, some places are worse. In Texas drunk driving is basically socially acceptable, plus you have people driving huge trucks, often with frivolous "grille guards" that would butcher any pedestrian or cyclist hit by them.
As a pedestrian, I'm often passed at close range, at speed by bicyclists that have their head in their phones. It's difficult to fathom this level of negligence.
I understand the frustration at a cyclist doing this, but are you more bothered by a cyclist doing this or a driver doing this?
You say "it's difficult to fathom this level of negligence", but a driver doing this is significantly more dangerous -- yet current laws don't take this into account.
For example: a ticket for a cyclist running a red light in NYC is greater than a ticket for a driver texting on their phone.
For the same act, of course a car is much more dangerous than a bicycle.
But, I've never been buzzed by a car going 20mph at a distance of under one foot, and certainly not while I'm walking on a sidewalk. I am regularly buzzed by bikes in this manner.
In general, drivers act with the knowledge that if they even tap a pedestrian, they're likely to severely injure or kill them. They might be sloppy or distracted, but they almost never willfully do this.
I encounter bicyclists playing "chicken" with me on sidewalks all the time. There's a cold or smug look on their face as they ride directly toward me--it's clear that I'd better step aside or be struck.
So, regardless of the actual numbers, cyclists seem more dangerous. I don't think accurate statistics are being collected on this sort of thing, and I think we should start.
(P.S. Have you really seen a bicyclist getting a ticket in NYC? Never seen that in my life. Wow!)
> In general, drivers act with the knowledge that if they even tap a pedestrian, they're likely to severely injure or kill them. They might be sloppy or distracted, but they almost never willfully do this.
In my experience as a cyclist and pedestrian, many drivers don't seem to act with the knowledge that if they even tap a pedestrian or cyclist that they'll severely injure or kill them. Many drivers do similar things to what you describe cyclists as doing. Ultimately the percentage of jerks among drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians is about the same.
> (P.S. Have you really seen a bicyclist getting a ticket in NYC? Never seen that in my life. Wow!)
Isn't NYC famous for ticketing cyclists? E.g., for not riding in the bike lane? (Which isn't illegal by the way.) I don't know specifically about the claim previously made but it seems plausible to me.
I live in Austin and as a cyclist I've gone through bike stop sign enforcement twice (getting a ticket neither time). My guess is that the same thing happens regularly in NYC, but you're not paying attention for such things.
Lived in NYC for about four years and never saw a cyclist being ticketed or even stopped. Even that guy that killed a pedestrian in Central Park wasn't ticketed, AFAIK.
Only saw maybe four drivers get tickets, though, and two looked more like some dispute about taxi regulations than actual moving violations.
I will say that NYC bicyclists are far more law-abiding and respectful than my current "bike-friendly" city. (Never thought I'd type those words...)
I feel like a lot of drivers I've encountered (in NYC) are relatively aggressive towards pedestrians & cyclists.
Cyclists shouldn't be on the sidewalk (unless they're kids <8 years old I believe).
As to bicyclists being ticketed... unfortunately, yes. I've been ticketed and a number of friends have been ticketed. There have been a number of anti-cycling initiatives recently (follow @bikesnobnyc to see the level of it, with some snark)
Bicycles are not to be ridden on sidewalks, which are for walking. You should promptly brace yourself and stiff arm said cyclist in the throat in joust. Bicycles are road legal vehicles.
Yes, I'm somewhat amazed by those cyclists. The "best" (i.e., most dangerous) distracted cyclists have no hands on their handlebars at all. Yet they might still be traveling at an appreciable speed. There are jerks in every transportation mode.
The data is from police reports where there was an accident. Do you think that it's underreported, and that people would not volunteer to an officer they were using their cell phones? Your first link talks about this in the Data Limitation section.
Also, and they don't note this, but people can be intoxicated and using a mobile device. I suspect their model substantially unreports DUIs where distraction was a factor. It is very easy to do a field test and chalk it up to a DUI and not investigate further.
Those stats are kinda messed up. They have a table that separates distracted drivers from cell phone drivers, for example. Are they not the same thing?
Also, in an accident where all parties are dead, how do you determine the cause?
There's so much emphasis on using your hands with the phone or not and with most laws that allow hands-free usage, people think that's completely safe; but it's not. No one talks about how distracting it is simply having a conversation on the phone while driving. The hands really aren't the most dangerous part of the equation.
Obviously, looking at the phone rather than the road is the worst part, but no one seems to be talking about how hands-free systems aren't helping either and are probably hurting by making people think they are being safe.
I also don't understand why the laws regarding cell phones and even drunk driving are so lax. Any of these should result in an immediate ban on your license for a long time. If I had a gun license and walked around shooting it, I would lose that license as well as I proved I am not responsible enough to operate it and that could result in death.
> Any of these should result in an immediate ban on your license for a long time.
Although I agree the reason this has (and may never) happen is that (atleast in America) we have been forced in a world where cars are basically required due to car-first development, so to take away someones license basically takes away employment opportunities, friends, and other basic necessities. People will spend a lot of time and money fighting traffic offenses, just so they don't lose there ability to drive due to the detrimental effects it has.
We have to make it stupid simple to drive because we have basically made that a requirement to function in normal society.
The only alternative (which I think we need to do) is to transform our transportation and development policies to make cars either optional or not needed at all.
Drunk driving laws are far from lax. In fact, my state puts of signs bragging about how bad you're fucked if you're caught driving drunk. Twenty thousand dollars in fines and court costs plus two years in jail, inability to legally drive for several more years plus the fact you can probably never afford insurance again, is plenty harsh enough to convince rational people not to drink and drive.
But, turns out alcoholics aren't rational people. So after they get out, they drive drunk, but this time they don't have insurance (and they're too broke to sue) so when they do cause an accident next time, the victim ends up needing to pony up the cash to pay for it.
I have several drunk family members who've been caught drunk driving multiple times. They've been to jail, and they don't have a license, but they still drive. This is not a problem you solve by making laws harsher (unless maybe you go to Sharia law levels of harsh and execute people after some number of offenses). You have to tackle alcoholism.
That's lax as hell. You kill someone with a car, you better not ever be able to use a car again. Mandatory to sell your car, license revoked, ankle monitor or something if needed to keep you out of your car. Don't play with people's lives.
>but no one seems to be talking about how hands-free systems aren't helping either and are probably hurting by making people think they are being safe.
If anything it can lead to worse behavior where people that are trying to text keep their phone below window level requiring them to take their eyes further off the road. I realize it's an attentional issue and that having the phone up higher won't resolve that component, but if you don't even have peripheral vision of the road for seconds at a time because you're looking down, you've got no hope of having your brain send you a danger signal to visual input.
Yes. The key difference is that the person in the passenger seat is there. They can see when you are doing something that requires more attention, and stop talking, and also even help with whatever it is that requires your attention. Conversations between people in the car naturally adapt to conditions. Conversations with someone not there do not.
I think once we're to the level of criticizing talking, a behavior that has been concurrent with driving the whole time driving has existed, we're close to demonizing devices [0] rather than poor behavior.
I don't see a problem with talking to close friends, holding the phone to my ear with one arm, on a highway in low traffic conditions (eg long drives at night). But any time I come up on a situation (passing a meandering car, heavy traffic passing me, construction zone, car stopped in breakdown lane [1]), I abruptly say "hold on", and take the phone away from my head. I probably laid the foundations for this behavior driving stick (where you want your second arm back to be able to shift etc). Most situations I also take the vehicle out of cruise control so that keeping speed has to be done with intent.
I can see the temptation to make the opposite choice - assume that everything will be fine, keeping some attention on the conversation. Meaning that if something unexpected occurs, I wouldn't be fully primed to deal and the problems multiply.
But I admit that this is all modulo the same bias of personal perception that makes many people think it's fine to stare at their phone half the time while driving. So perhaps data would disagree with me. But it takes more nuanced data than a simplistic division between "talking on phone" and "not talking on phone".
[0] There is a small possibility here that the DSP involved in making mobile calls sound reasonable only changes perception and still requires much more brainpower to process the audio.
[1] And because it doesn't seem universal: if someone - anyone - is stopped in the breakdown lane, move to the left even if you aren't in the right lane, to facilitate people in the right lane also moving over. The less "serious" a situation on the side of the road looks, the more likely it is that said people are amateurs unaccustomed to being pedestrians near the highway.
Yet there were many PSAs showing teens hanging out in a car, having a good time, distracting the driver with peer pressure, and causing a crash. And somehow we seemed to get past that.
But yes, that is why I said "good friends" - if you're talking to someone non-understanding where you're trying to "keep up" and can't just interrupt and ignore them at a moments notice, then the temptation is to modify your driving to suit the conversation.
I reckon there is a similar dynamic around texting (dopamine from the social interaction), where if everyone were capable of holding themselves to say one letter every 30 seconds we wouldn't have this epidemic at all. Although to be clear I'm certainly not condoning any sort of texting or app use, they are too compelling.
I have a two-pronged proposal which, though unrealistic, is technically feasible today and could probably work.
1. Force people seeking a driver's license to undergo classes, regardless of their prior self-education. In my opinion, a significant amount of irresponsible and incompetent driving stems from the early failures in parents teaching their kids properly. People not only don't learn everything they need to, but they don't respect driving as the dangerous activity it is.
If someone succeeds in obtaining their license, they must then re-test every five years to maintain it, regardless of their age and driving history.
2. Augment the new mandatory classes with virtual reality lessons. The VR headsets will ostensibly drill driving skills before they're practiced in a real vehicle.
But the real reason they'll be used is to force candidates to experience high fidelity simulations of hitting and killing people while in the vehicle. They will be exposed to the immediate trauma involved in hitting a family in a sedan, or killing a pedestrian who was adhering to the rules of the road. It might also be helpful to force them to watch footage of people being seriously injured and killed in vehicular collisions.
This recommendation comes from two hypotheses of mine. As the article states, people overwhelmingly know distracted driving is dangerous, but they can't help themselves. I believe this is because 1) they have no way to activate empathy for the potential danger they present to others, and 2) they do not take driving seriously enough. It is treated as an innate right with loose rules, not a dangerous activity sustained only out of necessity to keep urban society functioning.
Unfortunately, this proposal will never happen. I know parts of it are extreme, but I don't see an alternative for fixing such a systemic problem which isn't extreme.
LOL, you think children listen to parents when “taught properly”? We taught our kids all the proper behaviors, for years. Loads of examples of consequences, restrictions, lectures, etc. they still grow up and make poor choices.
When it comes to acquiring good judgement, for most people there is no teacher like experience.
That's a good point. A lot of what you're saying is inevitable for most adolescents due to contemporaneous hormonal and neurological changes they're enduring.
To combat that, we could induce accelerated experience using VR simulation.
I play VR driving games, including a steering wheel setup. Wouldn't you know it, I crash a lot in games and drive in excess of 200mph, or drive a 20 ton tractor trailer at 100mph weaving through traffic. If I crash, I reload. Meanwhile, the couple times I've tried to actually drive above 100mph, I've felt incredibly uncomfortable (despite my new car ostensibly being designed for the autobahn and possibly higher than that speed)
VR isn't magic. Your brain is pretty good at subtly understanding you won't die if you make a mistake
But it's no more real than the existing videos of accidents in drivers' education classes. If it happened to somebody else, or in a simulation, it's not real. People are inherently solipsistic about such things.
Once self-driving cars get reliable I'd like to see any driving infractions immediately result in the revocation of a license to drive manually - it'd honestly be a pretty easy and socially acceptable way to roll over to a majority of predictable drivers quickly.
For me and I presume many others this wouldn't work, we see very graphic images more often than we used to and I feel we are more desensitized to graphic images/videos.
Everyone knows that driving and looking at your phone is against the law and dangerous, but its a matter of "it won't happen to me" or "I've been doing it for years with no issue" that keeps people doing it.
I highly doubt VR will provide enough of a shock factor for people, it will more than likely make it feel like a video game where an accident is perfectly fine. Heck I play in gaming simulators with hyper realistic graphics and crashing doesn't phase me, the body is quite good at realising its not going to actually experience an accident.
Someone else here put it well "Everyone thinks they're above average, that bad things will never happen to them, that they're faster and have better reflexes than everyone else."
IMO we need to have penalties that are so harsh that they make drivers think twice (Immediate loss of license 3-6 months). The thought of potentially killing someone isn't a big enough incentive to not use your phone, because most of us have never experience it, so why would it happen to me?
I wouldn't underestimate how much more "real" and visceral VR can make things feel, even in its current state where the graphics are not photorealistic at all. Just search on youtube for videos of people letting their relatives and friends attempt playing VR games. I can attest to this myself, and I am somewhat difficult to get shaken up by traditional media like movies/games.
> In my opinion, a significant amount of irresponsible and incompetent driving stems from the early failures in parents teaching their kids properly.
Worse than parents leaving gaps in their lessons, one of my friends was directly told something that is wrong. His parents taught him to stay in the left lane unless his exit is coming up. They taught him to be a left lane hog.
> Augment the new mandatory classes with virtual reality lessons. The VR headsets will ostensibly drill driving skills before they're practiced in a real vehicle.
Driving in VR is not a good idea because of motion sickness. VR works great for games where your movement in the game world matches the real world (Job Simulator, Beat Saber, etc.), but any game that involves being in a moving vehicle (MS Flight Simulator, any racing game) is a 1-way ticket to nausea. I've got over 200 hours of gameplay in my Vive and still tend to avoid the racing games despite how fun they are because of this.
That all said, classes should absolutely be mandatory. They shouldn't just teach general driving habits, but give hands-on experience in emergency maneuvers. Make them have to suddenly avoid an obstacle at 60 mph on wet pavement. If possible, make them try it in both a large SUV and a compact sedan or coupe, ideally without stability/traction control, so they can learn to appreciate the better handling of a smaller car and not jump to an SUV under the illusion that they're safer.
In climates that get any amount of snow, emergency braking from both 30 mph and 60 mph should be attempted, not to mention practice turning. It's ridiculous that anybody acts like it's business as normal when driving in snow.
>Unfortunately, this proposal will never happen. I know parts of it are extreme, but I don't see an alternative for fixing such a systemic problem which isn't extreme.
It also won't work. People will do what they want regardless of how many laws we try to pass and how much we try to control them. See: drug war, prohibition, minimum age laws, sin taxes, traffic violations, DUI laws, longer prison terms, etc. I don't know why people don't realize that, even with all the historical evidence.
The only thing that works to curb behavior is education. See: Truth commercials, "Now You Know" campaigns on TV in the 80s, MTV's Teen Mom, etc. I think you are attempting education but it smells a lot like authoritarianism. People don't react well to forced education either.
Almost all education is forced. Realistically, the problem you're describing also extends to educating people.
My proposal attempts to activate a level of empathy and self-preservation. A tolerable amount of trauma is induced in potential drivers to get them to treat it as a necessary evil, not a rite of passage, a right or an enjoyable activity.
I think I understand what you mean when you say it sounds authoritarian, but I disagree. It's not authoritarian, it's just a more stringent set of rules on a gating function which already exists. I guess I would agree it sounds dystopian because of the VR simulations that would be involved. But then, it's a measure intended to curb tens of thousands of deaths each year, thousands of which are due to distracted driving in particular.
So take your idea out a few steps. We now have to buy, install and maintain VR setups for all the DMVs all over the country, then we have to train a bunch of DMV employees not only how to use it, but they in turn must teach citizens how to use it. I'd guess there are about 120 million drivers, so that's 120 million VR "experiences," and that's just the stuff off the top of my head. It doesn't sound very practical, and we don't even know it's effectiveness.
I would think we could save a ton of money just buying commercial spots explaining the physics, the statistics and a video of what a wreck looks like in totality.
Maybe even better, give companies tax incentives for domestic remote employment that replaces people coming into the office. That would probably hit the 80/20 rule right there.
Your proposal also sounds good, and probably more reasonable. We could probably implement both on a small scale for a pilot study to see which has better outcomes.
I've been wanting the VR lessons to be about a prospective driver experiencing what they do to people. What it's like to be passed too closely by a car, forced to brake and swerve to avoid being hooked by a car stealing the right of way, think a driver sees you and have them drive straight toward you anyway. Maybe the traumatizing one would be a driver running a pedestrian/cyclist over and driving away as you try to keep consciousness 'because they didn't know they hit anyone'.
In California if you apply for a license while under 18 you have to take lessons. Nowadays most people take them online. Anecdotally most new drivers get their license while this would apply to them.
I appreciate the irony of this based on your username :)
Seriously though, changing human behavior is hard. People didn't just start wearing seatbelts, there were years (arguably decades) of resistance and an active effort by many state law enforcement agencies to ticket it (even including an advertising campaign - click it or ticket).
I agree it's a huge problem, maybe even an epidemic. I agree we should not be lenient (within reason). But we have to start by educating consumers if our goal is change and not retribution.
Decades ago, it used to be “no big deal” to drive drunk. Then, armed with facts and a big public awareness campaign, attitudes slowly changed. If you bragged about driving drunk, it was no longer cool; you were shamed by your friends, you were deemed a dangerous asshole. We need something like this again.
Which (for me) translates to making eye contact with drivers whenever at an intersection, stop sign, or looking to see if people’s heads are up on the road (or down in their lap) when passing on a freeway.
Riding a motorcycle is the fastest way to realize how little attention people have on the road / surroundings when they drive.
As a cyclist I don't find that eye contact is enough. There have been quite a few times where I made eye contact with someone who was turning and was required by law to yield to me, yet they still pulled directly in front of me, almost causing a collision. The few times I have been able to talk to these drivers at a nearby intersection I've heard "I thought you had to stop for me." No, I'm oncoming traffic, you're supposed to stop for me! There are even signs reiterating this. Don't know how common this is for (pedal)cyclists vs. motorcyclists but it just indicates to me that mutual eye contact alone is not enough.
At intersections its the people behind you. I have lots of friends who have been rear ended on their bikes. People tend to reach for the phone when approaching a red light.
> making eye contact with drivers whenever at an intersection, stop sign
The number of vehicles with very dark tinting on front windows has, in my experience, increased dramatically. I do this, too, but it's getting to where I can make eye contact less than half the time.
Maybe I need to bring a very bright flashlight so I can make sure I can see the driver...
Same for me being a full-time pedestrian. I bought a very reflective safety jacket from a nearby aviation supply store. It's cut down dramatically on the number of "near misses" from regular vehicles.
People driving "rideshare" taxis still try to run me over in marked crosswalks an average of once per day. Nothing will come between them and their fares.
My next step is to buy a pocket-sized air horn. If drivers of cars can have horns, so can I.
Where do you live? I’m pedestrian most of the time in Seattle, and I’ve never experienced such a degree of danger that it could be cut down dramatically and still be having near misses. Not anywhere else either, NY, Istanbul, etc.
I live inside Seattle with no car. North of the ship canal or south of I90, no problem. But in and around Amazonia, Capitol Hill, or the downtown core? Rideshare cab drivers are the worst. Regular drivers at least usually drive slow enough to see my wide yellow-coated self walking through a crosswalk now that I have a very bright jacket.
Then again, I'm pretty sure rideshare cabbies don't give a shit about traffic laws anyway. They see "bus only" and think "ah, the perfect loading zone" so it's not too surprising that crosswalks are viewed as impediments to their next fare.
I live right in that area. I also do not drive. While I’ve no serious complaints about the drivers, the pervasive construction blocking sidewalks citywide, forcing pedestrians to zigzag along potentially dangerous routes, frustrate me endlessly.
It doesn't get mentioned a lot, but there are significant differences in pedestrian behavior and its affect on their likelihood of encountering this issue.
It's difficult to talk about because there's an angle of blaming the victim to it, and I understand and even applaud peoples' gut resistance to that. When I'm with friends who cross without looking my reply to them is usually "There are plenty of dead people out there who had the right-of-way."
My pet theory is that the bad actors are bad actors across all forms of transportation. A crappy driver makes a crappy pedestrian/cyclist. I think this is because being a "good" driver/cyclist/pedestrian requires you to anticipate what the other class of traffic wants to do (e.g. read body language to see when a car will choose to pull into traffic or a pedestrian cross the street) and if you can't do that in the car->pedestrian direction you probably can't do it in the other.
Living in San Antonio, I ride almost every day. It is funny when I ride and have no phone or music I am much more aware of my surroundings. I also notice people texting more and when a car is driving funny can almost predict if they are on their phone.
The few times i have almost been hit is by someone who has a device in their hands and most are merging into my lane and not paying attention.
Even when driving a passenger vehicle I assume this. I've got dashcams recently and I honestly get YouTube-worthy footage on pretty much _every single drive_. It's absolutely ridiculous.
I had people cut me off ilegally, pass another vehicles by going in the wrong way (risking a frontal collision with my car), turn while texting, miss the radius and climb on the sidewalk (that one was scary, I genuinely believed the guy would hit a nearby trash truck)...
I saw several crashes, including cars literally flipped over in a straight avenue, dunno how that one happened.
Yet... I started driving only one year ago, in one year I saw much, much, MUCH shenanigans on the road, it is just ridiculous, I don't like using my horn yet there were days I had to use it more than once to avoid collisions (ie: people not paying attention were about to crash on me, 4 DIFFERENT people mind you... and it was a 10 minute drive!)
Definitely get one. You can get one for under $100 these days, some even under $50. The quality starts to drop at that price point, but they'll be good enough to establish fault in a crash.
They're super easy to use. They constantly write in a loop, deleting old footage to make room for new footage as the memory card fills up, so you don't have to maintain them. And they'll usually have a button to press that will move the last couple minutes of video to a location where it won't automatically get deleted when full.
Me too. And as a car driver I hate motorcyclists who weave in and out of traffic and pass on the shoulder. I also hate people who drive up to my back end and pass, narrowly missing me. I also hate drivers who cut off Semis.
Bad drivers are just bad drivers and there needs to be better enforcement.
You gotta honk. I honk ALL THE TIME now. It’s just enough of a jolt to send a signal to everyone around you that it’s time to snap back to attention. It works marvelously. I don’t like doing it... but it really works. If the light turns green and no one has moved for a few seconds I give a little tiny honk and like clockwork you can see brake lights in every lane turn off and people begin to activate.
I don’t think we can solve this with enforcement. We gotta start thinking outside the box. I have no advice... I wish I did ... but it’s an epidemic. Its a symptom of a much larger issue, I think, so we need to try and treat that instead.
As a cyclist I used to use an air horn (Air Zound brand) for exactly the same purpose. Distracted drivers aren't looking, but fortunately their ears typically work whether they are paying attention or not!
Some people consider honking rude no matter the reason, but I think honking for safety is exactly the reason horns are added to vehicles. It's not rude at all, in fact, it would be rude to not honk as far as I'm concerned.
We're working on it but progress is so slow and halting. There was Times Square, then Herald Square, and now just this past year we're seeing removal of most vehicles from 14th St and a temporary removal of vehicles around Rockefeller Center for the holidays. Progress is still way too slow though. I'd love to see Broadway being fully pedestrianized from Columbus Circle down to at least Union Square; imagine how transformative an effect that would have on the city. (And tourists would love it!)
Speaking as someone who lives in Manhattan, you won't get much sympathy with this complaint. Yes, honking can be annoying, and yes it's overused (especially by trigger happy taxis).
But it's the only way to actually get someone's attention sometimes. If you live in an urban area you should know what you're signing up for. People are going to honk, even if it's annoying to the rest of us living in the city.
I live in Manhattan too. "Just suck it up" isn't the correct response. You even admit that it's annoying, so why roll over and resign yourself to it? One asshole with a loud horn making lots of noise on the streets at night can easily wake up hundreds of people. How is this remotely acceptable? It has a real measured public health burden. We can and should do better; getting proper sleep is important.
And by the way, the vast majority of horn use is illegal.
I agree with everything you're saying. All I'm saying is you won't find much sympathy. People really like honking, and it's probably not politically tenable to legislate that away.
I think the average person is more sympathetic than you are, to be blunt. You're projecting here.
Loud honking (especially at night) is a common complaint that New Yorkers frequently empathize over. Keep in mind that fully 78% of households in Manhattan don't even own a car, so way more people are annoyed by honking than ever do it.
And it's already illegal, no further legislation needed. The issue is with enforcement.
You still seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm personally sympathetic. I'm saying most other people just don't care much. If they did, they wouldn't honk.
You don’t need to contribute any more to the noise pollution, just pay attention to other drivers, keep safe distance and be patient. A lot of the problems including distracted driving come from the lack of self-control of most of the people.
> just pay attention to other drivers, keep safe distance and be patient
Negative ghostrider... being patient is why traffic has gotten to the point it is today. Too many people have become comfortable with the status quo and that is why things move at a snails pace.
This is it, this is why additional training etc won't work.
You need to catch and significantly penalise someone to stop them. The incentive of not killing someone isn't good enough because most of us have never experienced almost killing someone with their car, so why would it happen to me?
In my opinion, you need to have penalties so harsh that it will stop drivers from using their phones. Immediate loss of license for 3-6 months etc.
Yes, it's been illegal for years - but EVERY DAY I see people on their phones - talking, texting. My favorite move is when they're holding their phone like a waiter - it's on speaker phone, but I would consider that in no way "hands free" operation. And they are always driving recklessly (inconsistent speed, sometimes swerving). It's absolutely out of control.
The hypothesis of why local conversations are safer is that when traffic gets complex, the passenger will see that as well and pause the conversation. The person on the phone doesn't have that awareness. However some jurisdictions have restrictions on passengers for younger/provisional drivers, for just that reason.
FWIW, the data doesn't really bear this out. Vehicle travel has been getting steadily safer in the US for decades. Obviously there are problems that need to be addressed, and those change over time, but the war is a long one and we're winning. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
That's not to say driving with a phone is safe, but it's not a crisis. We address it with the same tools we always have: law enforcement and regulation of safety technologies.
We're winning. This is absolutely crazy that 36 000 deaths a year in the USA is considered "winning". Like it couldn't get any better. Hey it's better than the apocalypse from 30 years ago, we are WINNING. If terrorism was 36,000 deaths every year you can bet this would be a big topic of conversation.
Other data to look at, shared of accidents caused by distracted driving are way way up. Perhaps if distracted driving was going down instead of going up, we would be getting much lower than 36,000 death/year
My point was that our reaction to this new problem of distracted driving should be commensurate with our reaction to the "old problems" of, I dunno, DUI or road rage or whatever. Because numerically it doesn't really make sense.
By all means let's work to reduce traffic fatalities. Let's just do it in a smarter way that "OMG phones in cars" -- I mean, how about work on better civil infrastructure choices so people aren't incentivized to drive in the first place.
The decrease in fatalities is mostly a result of improved safety technologies. The appropriate statistic would be to look at accident rates under similar traffic densities and speeds to see whether or not that bears out.
Eh. You're likely making a statistical error also. Cars are massively more safe to get in an accident in. In theory the rates of deaths should have fallen far further.
How do you know they should have fallen much further? How are you quantifying the increases in safety? Cars might be less safe even since cars are getting lighter to hit fuel efficiency regulations.
It seems fatalities per 100 million VMT reached a minimum in 2014 (1.08) and has crept back since then [1] (to 1.19 in 2016, 1.13 in 2018), still not much above 2012 levels (1.14). I can only speculate that the decline has to do with more safer models on the road and then distracted drivers perhaps bumped things up very slightly again.
I think most drivers, at least those not always distracted, notice the prevalence of distracted drivers on the road - cars that drive normally and then, say, gradually slow down to well below the speed limit and the speed of traffic. Which is to say, considering how common they are, it's remarkable these drivers don't cause many more accidents - statistics altogether seem to say they don't (correct me if I'm missing something). A factor to consider is that the "not as dangerous as you think" quality of distracted drivers comes because they do drive slowly, slowing traffic and thereby reducing accident totals (years ago, the introduction of the 55 speed limit reduced traffic fatalities a lot, see same wikipedia article).
Basically, the distraction trends seems to have made driving more annoying but not that much more unsafe. Perhaps something still needs to be done but that something might just some warning bells when driver driving outside the norms.
I'd like to see statistics on collisions per 100 million VMT.
Distracted driving might not lead to more fatalities, but I could certainly see them causing more collisions. So many crashes I see on dash cam compilations on YouTube are people using their phone while driving and rear-ending someone at ~20 mph.
Seems like most people I observe texting seem to do so at low risk times (e.g. at stop light or in stop and go traffic). People looking at their phones in traffic in areas where "things happen" (pedestrians present, traffic entering, etc.) seem to be much rarer. There's not much opportunity to kill someone accidentally in those kinds of conditions because of the low speed which is probably why those accidents don't show in the death based statistics you're looking at.
Haven't there been some studies that associate smart phones with addictive drugs? Something to do with dopamine dependency. If true, how do you ween people off drugs?
Facebook is basically a slot machine. Checking your notifications, almost always it's garbage but one day it could be an old friend reaching out to you. It's designed to be addictive and it's very successful.
If you want to learn more about it, the effect is usually called "intermittent reinforcement". Check out the first two episodes of https://humanetech.com/podcast/ (transcripts available)
Studies on smart phone usage should be taken with a grain of salt because it's hard to define the spectrum of use without self-reporting. One might use their phone to watch lectures while another is watching clickbait but both can be on the same app.
More like the apps themselves aspire to operate on the level of addictive drugs.
"People refuse to put down their phones. They keep dying, suffering, showing many signs of addiction, still keep refusing."
Drivers are just a large subset of the population. The phone addiction is a problem with the society as a whole. The impact of this addiction is just most visible, as an externality, in drivers.
I'm not defending drivers, I'm just saying that drivers are people, and this is a wider people issue, not a driver specific one. I write this as a runner, cyclist, walker, and a very occasional driver.
It is not about saving lives, and mobile phone distractions are not as bad as you think. Statistics are commonly misused.
Speeding kills your pocketbook 2 explores this in depth, fact checking accident statistics in BC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzmVCSfRR38
Yeah, it's remarkable that distracted drivers don't cause very many accidents but, indeed, statistics show they don't.
I'm an impatient driver (when I'm not watching myself) and distracted drivers slow me and when I'm watching someone drive distractedly, it is easy for me to think that driver is about to cause an accident but that view can be biased by my desire to pass that "slow, inconsiderate jerk".
Generically referring to the Misuse of Statistics doesn't really add something to the discussion though. Is there a specific critique of the statistics regarding texting while driving?
Phones have GPS. In states where texting and driving is banned, why isn't there some way to program the phone so that it simply doesn't function if it detects a speed of over 5-10 mph?
I just don't see a problem with that since it's already the law.
It could then send an automated message back to the caller letting them know the owner appears to be driving and can't take your call.
I'm sure many of us here are old enough to remember life before cell phones and I can guarantee you that there's almost never anything so emergent that it can't wait until you get to your destination.
Sorry, some of us still consider a phone to be a personal computer. Legislating that phone software mandatorily implement centralized rules, no matter how sensible the specific rules would be, is the path to further locking down these devices and general societal computational disenfranchisement.
I have always connected this problem with automatic cars. I haven't looked at statistical evidence, but I think this is a much bigger problem in the US than the UK and I think it's because it's much easier to drive an auto with one hand.
I often see established vloggers and public figures recording themselves with a smartphone while driving and they always seem to be American.
I believe there has been some adjacent research done into the safety of manual cars which has found that they can be safer since they demand more concentration to drive.
I think driving an automatic might help but it's by no means necessary.
I don't know what the numbers are, but around Paris, where most cars are manual, there are a lot of people texting on their phones (I'll see at least several of them on my 5 km commute in the city traffic).
If I had to guess, I'd say the biggest reason is that it's dead simple to get a driver's license in the US.
I remember meeting with a German coworker, raving about how fantastic it was to drive in Germany[0]. He was flabbergasted to learn how easy it is to get a driver's license in the US.
Driving is more necessary in the US than in Europe, but it's absurd that (at least in WA) all[1] that's needed is:
- a small, multiple-choice test
- a ~20 minute driving test
- a small fee for all of the above
[0]: driving through small medieval-ish Germany cities sucks, though.
Unpopular opinion: Trying to look at it from a constraint problem.
1) telling people not to use their phones. I think this is a losing fight. Why do people use their phones? Because waiting for red lights is boring. We have a 3 minute red light (1 min per direction) in one of our junctions. Almost every driver is distracted at end of 3 mins and somewhat on their phone.
I don’t think phones are going away anytime soon.
On the other hands I’d like cars to get a bit smarter. I’ve really been enjoying my comma Eon. It does a great job of following lanes allowing me to use my brain cycles for higher order environmental awareness about other cars. I feel a bit less guilty changing to another Spotify track on my phone.
But it’s also a phone problem too. The touch interface is horrible. There is no tactile feedback. Siri voice commands are really dumb as hell.
The phone could be mounted on the dash and the mobile is needs to guarantee every app can be used via voice with almost as much efficiency and accuracy as touching it.
Basically what I’m saying is. Let’s fight the problem at a deeper layer.
What floors me about this article is that the data comes from phone users who have installed TruMotion based software. In other words they know their driving behavior is being actively tracked, and they STILL use their phones while driving.
I have to think a good amount of these people are actually unable to make the choice of not using their phone while driving, presumably because the habit is so deeply ingrained.
The answer might turn out to be that it makes bicyclists less safe.
A couple of years ago I moved to a place with extensive bike lanes and other bike-friendly signage, road features, etc. Sounds awesome. But I've noticed that it significantly adds to the mental load of driving here. I'm an unusually conscientious driver, and I often encounter the feeling of hitting my multitasking ceiling at intersections, partly due to the bicycle-friendly increase in complexity. I suspect that many less careful blow through that ceiling without realizing it.
I think this is a real phenomena. Many traffic engineers don't seem to appreciate it.
Earlier this year I did a small study of how often drivers yield to me, a cylist, at certain crossings. These crossings are rather confusing, but the city seems to believe that merely putting signs (sometimes multiple in basically the same spot) telling drivers to yield to cyclists is enough. It's not. Drivers nearly run over cyclists on a regular basis at these crossings. According to my statistics drivers yield to cyclists only about 61% of the time. See the slides here:
That's a great example of an over-complex pattern. The yield sign is awful--hard to even tell whether it's for the cars or the bicycles.
Here's what worked for me, over thousands of miles of cycling back before bike lanes, etc.:
1. I rode as far right as I safely could, typically on the white line or a foot away from the curb, and always with the flow of traffic.
2. I was careful to ride in a straight line, following a completely predictable path.
3. I had a glasses-mounted rear-view mirror and kept an eye on traffic coming up behind. I never needed to, but I was always ready to bail out to the right in a split second. Towards that end, kept my bike in top shape and practiced quick stops and counter-steering.
4. Never made left turns if vehicles were present. Instead, passed through the intersection, stopped on far side, dismounted, and lifted/turned bike 90 degrees.
5. Reflective gear day and night. Never rode in poor visibility (e.g., rain storm).
6. Most importantly, always yielded to all vehicular traffic all of the time. If a car could intersect my path, I just stopped and waited, unless I could make eye contact and it was clear that they saw me and intended to wait.
With that, never had a close call, nor even got honked at.
Now, you might say that that's not fair, or that you don't want to ride in such a wimpy style. I understand. But I think it's the only safe(-ish) way to ride on public streets.
I don't believe that laws are responsible for this plateau in distracted driving, but instead the fact that hands-free phone integration in new cars became pretty common six or so years ago. So now, even people buying used cars are buying cars that have hands-free usage. My two cars from 2013 the barest base models available of already cheap cars and they both have hands-free support.
The graph showing the downward trend in distracted driving starting at ~2013 is solid evidence in favor of this explanation.
If laws were responsible for the reductions, then the article should point out that states who didn't pass new laws also didn't see reductions in usage.
I do agree that this is a problem, but misidentifying the cause of the downward trend is actively working against a solution. Perhaps we should be passing laws that mandate vehicle-phone integration standards rather than punitive traffic laws.
People need to actually use the hands-free option, though. Most of my older relatives have newer cars, but none of them are tech-savvy or motivated enough to set up the hands-free mode or learn how to use it.
Abstinence based policies are not working. We need to let people hold and talk on their phone. Everyone is trying to hide their phone. Ride in a bus in the bay area and you'll see ~25-50% of people on their phone on a given day. Are there any studies of cities that allowing talking on the phone, but no texting?
My car doesn't have aux-in or bluetooth, so I'll often listen to a ebook via TTS while holding my phone on my shoulder (if it's loud), or in my chest pocket if it's not loud in the area.
Not just talking, we have to ban listening too. If somebody is listening to the radio, they're not focusing absolutely 100% of their attention on driving, so that makes them a menace. Never mind that statistics don't show that listening to the radio causes accidents (just as statistics don't show that talking on the phone causes accidents), we won't rest until everybody is miserable all the time.
Its very different. A passenger has a stake in the safety of the vehicle and reacts to surroundings. They pause when the driver is entering a complicated intersection and sometimes remind the driver to look at the road.
Not in my experience. They're playing with the music, on their phone, reading, hanging their feet out the window, etc. In fact if you're one of those backseat drivers "reminding me to look at the road" (as if I'm not paying attention) you can find your own transportation.
I wonder how harsh penalties would have to get before you'd achieve an acceptable level of compliance. Like, I'm not suggesting this is a good idea. But if you instated a nation-wide death penalty for texting and driving, and then actually executed a few people, compliance would likely follow soon after. People would be terrified to look at their phones while driving.
OK, that's probably too harsh (although viewed from a utilitarian lens, perhaps not?). What if the fine were like $10k, and were handed down liberally for first offenders?
None of this is going to happen of course. I suspect we'll be living with this problem until self-driving cars are ubiquitous. I'm just sort of morbidly curious what level of viciousness would be required to convince people to behave like responsible human beings.
--- But if you instated a nation-wide death penalty for texting and driving, and then actually executed a few people, compliance would likely follow soon after. ---
Draconian enforcement has it's place, but it's not on this sort of policy. This would either become a tool of assassination, or just kill a bunch of young, poor people. The enforcement would stop for wealthy kids in privileged areas.
Honestly, this is a more carrot then stick problem. It's unsolvable with the privacy rights American's are entitled to under the constitution. The best approach would be to incentivize safe usage and create some sort of system to track and penalize unsafe behavior. It would need to be a minor fine, but that would make enforcement more likely, give better data, and allow us to punish habitual offenders who actually cause harm.
The thought experiment is predicated on just application of the policy. There are dozens of practical problems with the idea more serious than "it would cut unevenly across socioeconomic and racial layers."
The carrot/stick idea is interesting though. I wonder if you could incentivize manufacturers to make a really good triangulating beacon that would allow a phone to know if it's in the driver area of the car, and whether the car is in motion. The phone could disable all functions for the duration of the drive based on this signal. You'd do this in firmware and ideally using some sort of chain of trust that can't be circumvented by rooting the phone. Free software folks would squawk, but the world might be better off for it.
I'd say the 'no talking/text' laws went into effect locally, the problem has gotten worse. Anecdotally, I would previously see people would holding their phones up in front of the windshield while they used it. This would at least reduce the time required to switch focus between the road and the phone.
With the regulations now in place, as you said everyone is trying to hide it. This usually means below the dashboard - so the driver is now looking _down_ at their phone. Not only does this seem to increase the amount of time spent looking away from the road (it's slower to switch, and so people are doing it less), it also greatly reduces even _peripheral_ awareness that something relevant may be unfolding on the road.
I used to have a great system for texting and driving, before it was made illegal in CA -- I generally drive with my left hand, so I would hold my phone up on the steering wheel with my right hand (at 3:00) and I would text as needed with my right thumb. Since I was holding the phone up on the wheel, I would never take my eyes off the road to text. I did this frequently for years and years, was never really distracted, got very good at it (quick at thumb typing), didn't have any issues to speak of.
Then, when it became illegal, I got like two tickets for doing this in two years. So, I learned to start hiding my phone way down low on my lap to text. Now, if I decide to text while driving, I constantly have to take my eyes off the road and look way down at my lap to text, for seconds at a time. Texting the easy and safe way, where the phone is held next to the steering wheel, has been punished and gets tickets. Texting the unsafe way, holding the phone down at lap level, rarely gets a ticket.
In the next couple years of holding my phone down at my lap level to text, I had not gotten any tickets, but I did have some minor issues doing this. Since I had to take my eyes off the road to text this way, I caught myself swerving towards the center line, or the berm, etc., multiple times. And I almost rear ended someone because traffic stopped when I was looking down at my lap for 1-2 seconds.
Because of these issues, I gave up texting and driving entirely, however, I doubt most people ever will, as I tend to have a lot more self-control than most people (I've completely quit drinking, quit smoking, quit gaming, etc.) Overall, I find it very ironic that the safe(est) way of texting, where you don't have to take your eyes off the road, is punished, while the unsafe, dangerous way (holding your phone at lap level) is not.
Banning texting basically made it far less safe than it used to be -- everyone holds their phone at lap level now, so of course that's a huge issue.
Your form of texting while driving was likely safer than the alternatives.
Your form of texting while driving was less safe than not texting.
Do not text and drive.
There are plenty of people who have texted without incident, that doesn't reflect a particular merit to the way you texted it's just simple statistics. If you touch an electric stove top hot enough to boil water you'll be burned, but if you touch it a short while after turning it on you may be burned. Texting and driving is not an instant guarantee of an accident so don't mistake your luck for skill.
You may be a quite skilled driver, I'm, personally, a very distractable person in open environments, so I've never pursued a license to drive.
The choice to text and drive is an absolute malus on your driving safety, being in a car with you may be safer than being in a car with other folks when they are fully focused, clear minded and sober - but you're accepting an additional risk and it is putting yourself and others in danger. When you text and drive you lower your awareness and a situation you may have been able to escape with full focus may become a fatal accident, studies have shown that texting does significantly impact driving and not only because of looking away to a screen - it also diverts your attention to consider the environment which can result in slower reaction times.
It may very well be that your skill at driving is sufficient to avoid an accident while texting that a normal person couldn't avoid at full focus but, your reaction speed is lowered and if you text and drive it will reinforce that being a socially acceptable activity and lead other people to text and drive that may have fatal accidents themselves.
I upvoted you because you were brave enough to post a story about your texting and driving. While I agree in theory with your point that the law made texting and driving a less safe activity, what you were doing was already unsafe, don't you see that? You could have easily killed someone.
Cars have blind spots to check; pedestrians, pets, kids, bikes can come from no where really quickly. Don't you agree that drivers should have 100% of their cognitive capacity devoted to driving? If not, if you allow 90% of cognitive capacity to watching all around the roadway, multiply that 90% over millions of drivers, and you're statistically going to have thousands of unnecessary deaths and countless more injuries and accidents.
If you're texting "okay" or "on my way" and you kill someone, you will have killed someone's family member all for a completely pointless, inane text. Even if you never killed someone, and you only injured someone or scared the Beejesus out of someone, how is it worth the .001% convenience to text someone now instead of at your destination or pulling over briefly with hazards or turn indicator?
There's no safe texting and driving. You're lucky you didn't murder anyone.
This is how you sound to me:
> When I drive drunk, I drive real slow. But I started getting pulled over, so I started driving drunk and at normal speeds. It's so dangerous to do that. Why can't I drive drunk really slow, it is the safest way to drive drunk after all! Most people don't have the self control I do.
If you find that unconvincing, don't expect others to find your anecdote convincing.
My first experience with a giant texting anus was with a guy in a big SUV who I noticed was draping his hands over the top of the steering wheel while driving too close behind me on the Merritt Parkway. Eventually I figured out he was holding Blackberry (back in the day) and texting. All the way to New York. Using me as a human shield. I'm sure he was delighted at his "system."
Cell phone use is known to impair driving as much as being drunk, and texting more so.
Penalties need to be upgraded to match those of drunk driving convictions, and enforced as strictly as drunk driving is. Including manslaughter and homicide charges when the cell phone use is involved in an incident that results in deaths.
Yet another benefit to limiting the need for cars in new building developments. Plenty of pedestrians also look at their phones while walking but a collision of two pedestrians is very unlikely to be fatal.
Apple might be able to implement some sort of "It seems as though you are traveling in a car, we have disabled texting and driving." but then that has the obvious issue of preventing passengers from texting.
If you were to embrace the problem, whats the safest way to let people text and drive while on their phone? Something that doesn't force them to look down off the road?
Hands free voice to text sucks.
Best thing I can think of is some sort of windshield heads up display and a keyboard on your steering wheel hah
Having been involved in applications of speech recognitions since the early 1990s, I can say that modern speech recognition and connected-speech dictation is a near-miraculous acceleration of of technological progress in that area. I can speak into my wristwatch in a noisy bar to reply to a text and get reliable transcription. Amazing!
My car knows when its key fob is inside it with great precision, to the point that I cannot even lock the doors while it is inside. My iPhone knows when it is itself in the car, so when I want to use it while driving, I have to dismiss a warning message, which I adeptly do with muscle memory.
Seems to me if cars supported driver and passenger authentication, most illegal device usage could be stopped rather trivially.
The problem is that many authentication mechanisms could create a dangerous skinner box for drivers that have decided to flout the laws and text anyway. If we have phone users prove they’re not driving by solving math puzzles or tapping a flashing square or something, you will have a driver that attempts to do that while driving. The same goes for doing something like putting an NFC pad in the passenger door. There will be SOME driver out there that will attempt to reach across the car while driving to unlock their phone.
Allowing passengers to use devices in any capacity makes it extremely difficult to build technological solutions to this.
Couldn't the driver just authenticate as a passenger? It's not a good assumption to assume that, because there's only one cell phone in the car, it's going to be the drivers, so I don't know know an approach where the driver just can't circumvent the restriction.
The car would need to authenticate the driver as the driver, and each passenger as a passenger. Plenty of ways to do it. As an iPhone user, TouchID and FaceID come to mind.
How do they know when these drivers are driving vs. being a passenger? Do they rely on the driver to click a button to indicate that? Or do they just assume that anytime a cellphone is going a certain speed, the user is driving? I did not see this addressed in the article and frankly, without knowing this, their data is completely useless. For all we know, they're gathering data on passengers.
In the last two weeks, I've seen two drivers with phones mounted on their windshields, watching what appeared to be the news while driving on the highway. Both instances were men, at least 40 or older. It shouldn't come as a shock in 2019, but I was still pretty surprised in the moment. Unfortunately, according to the article, my state has no such laws against this type of behavior.
To be fair, I've played video (not in the car, for the record) that I only really had on in a background tab for the audio. Something like the recent impeachment hearings I could see pulling up CNN for without actually watching.
I guess the Bloomberg article is wrong...we do have laws that ban using a phone while driving for manual entry (texting, web browsing). I wonder how watching video content plays into that?
Unpopular opinion: though a cause for concern, a video playing near a driver's windshield is far less dangerous than a driver taking their eyes off the road, looking down at their phone, context switching, and interacting with it. In my area distracted driving is epidemic -- I just assume that most of the folks rear ending each other in broad daylight are the direct result of drivers looking down at their phone.
I agree this is an unpopular opinion - because if you want to watch a video than take the train or the bus - I read on my commute every day while I ride the train in.
I know software isn't a panacea, but how hard would it be to design the cars so that if you are alone in the car (and therefore obviously the driver), mobile devices shift into hands-free-only mode?
I realize if you had multiple passengers it seems like a much harder technical problem to detect whether the person using the phone is also driving.
With technologies like Nearby it is possible to determine if you are near other individuals' devices. It is possible to infer you are in a car based on samples from phone sensors. In addition, it is possible to tell you are not driving a car based on your body movements. The kinds of apps your car insurer likes you to run have to make all these inferences already (if they don't have a hardware component independent of your phone).
That's so interesting, thanks! So it sounds like actually there could be a big technical piece of the solution to this problem, if devices already know (or could know) how to shift automatically into driving mode…
If only there were the regulatory will to implement this, over and above being nudged (I guess?) by insurers…
To be fair it's a lot more complicated. One reason you don't hear much about what insurance apps really do is that they don't really know the what all that data can tell them. Another is that it would creep you out. Each use case has different sensitivity to false positives/negatives. But, in general, if they've got your accelerometer data and location, they, whoever "they" might be, know you pretty well.
If you were only putting your life in danger rather than other people’s, using the phone while driving could actually be rational. Consider how much your life expectancy reduces by using the phone while driving vs how much time you waste due to commuting and not using the phone during that time.
Ive noticed in the last month people mounting their phones on their steering wheel or dash and watching tv. Full on Korean dramas or whatnot. As bad as that is there is a special place in hell for drivers who make eye contact with the passenger they are talking to while driving.
Sure, it's a problem, but motor vehicle deaths are down pretty substantially in the past decade. The per capita rate is down nearly 50% since the 70s. A lot of this is from safety standards, but I don't really see this as an epidemic.
I disagree, as soon as driverless cars exist being able to manually drive a car becomes a luxury and shifts from a right[1] to a privilege - when that happens unsafe driving violations should immediately revoke that right and we could quickly up the volume of self-driving cars. AI driving assistance might be the missing puzzle piece here, once it'd mature we can start forcing people on to it and once folks are on it then we can start banning full manuals and forcing full automation as we will have upped driver predictability.
America's puritanical streak is a mile wide. We will ruin your life if you're doing something fun like drinking and driving, but we'll turn a blind eye if you're doing something equally reckless and dangerous like simply sending someone else a text message and not looking at the road.
Texting and driving should obviously be treated the same as DUI if we're going to be logically consistent about recklessly endangering your fellow drivers and pedestrians, but I'm not optimistic about that happening.
