6 ms·

I'm of the belief that while phones have contributed, it's just not hard enough to drive anymore. Try driving a manual shift, non power steering vehicle some t

by bbarn 10y ago

I'm of the belief that while phones have contributed, it's just not hard enough to drive anymore. Try driving a manual shift, non power steering vehicle some time and using your phone. That's the world the roads were built for, not this ultra easy, power assisted, auto-speed control, auto-lane control world where you don't even feel the speed difference between 60 and 90. I used to hear people say they couldn't drive without the radio because they "needed the distraction". I never got that. Isn't driving supposed to be the only thing you're doing while driving? All the hands free apps in the world can't solve split focus. Even a bluetooth, voice activated system requires you to commit brain cycles to the conversation that's coming through that will take away from your ability to drive. We sit and argue about how bad context switching is, how important it is in our careers as developers to focus on what we're doing, then we build apps and devices that are competing to be the best attention stealing devices they can be.

viraptor 10y ago
> I never got that. Isn't driving supposed to be the only thing you're doing while driving? Kind of. There are different studies showing various kinds of impact. For example: http://content.iospress.com/articles/occupational-ergonomics/oer00144 http://content.iospress.com/articles/occupational-ergonomics... "Music seems to alleviate driver stress and mild aggression while at times facilitating performance. However, during other conditions of music, driving performance is impaired." My own experience is that without music or a podcast in the background I get tired much more quickly. (as in, can do 3h drive without getting exhausted -vs- 1-2h) Because if only thing you have is the engine noise and road ahead, that's the only thing you can focus on, and things really don't change that often. (if your mind doesn't start to wonder / phase out in those conditions - great; mine does) It also helps in the evening a lot. If the whole world is just a cone of light 50m ahead, my mind starts to wonder, or just get sleepy really quickly. Having something unrelated that keeps you mildly interested, but not taking attention seems like a good solution.
niftich 10y ago
In all fairness, the 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an uneventfully featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads. Meanwhile the urban grandfathered interstates are like NASCAR with a concrete wall to one side, and ruthless traffic inches to your side. And even sometimes on a suburban parkway signed for 45, with four lanes going the same way, you fear for your life as SUVs heading home from work weave around you to get two cars ahead. There is a wide variance in driving difficulty throughout the day, even on the same stretch of road, and varying with the amount and nature of traffic, the sun in your eyes, wind, the weather. And as you say, driver assist and safety systems like widespread adaptive cruise control, electronic stability control, blind spot warning, emergency brake assist, and curtain airbags encourage a style of driving that's 'not truly defensive' at best, oblivious at worst. Because why not go the speed limit if cars are so safe and they've got your back? This isn't misplaced nostalgia for the days when driving was more dangerous, but I do believe as cars get safer, situational awareness worsens and riskier behaviors are less likely to result in serious accidents -- so some drivers continue to take more risks.
- athenot 10y ago
  > 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an uneventfully featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads This is true. 95% of the time, it would be just as safe to be cruising at 90 mph. But for those other 5% where there's an unexpected tire in the middle of the road, a deer, a driver who swerved into your lane or any other danger... a few extra milliseconds to react and respond is what makes the difference between a close call and severe damage. This means driving is condemned to be a mostly boring activity, and in our present age where boredom is to be avoided at all costs, it becomes a magnet for distractions. One solution is to drive a vehicle that requires more immersion: a stick shift car, a convertible, a jeep, a motorcycle, etc. These are vehicles which let you feel the road.
  - hvidgaard 10y ago
    A manual car is only engaging below 50mph, above that you're in highest gear anyway. Any once you learn it, it becomes second nature and you don't really engage anymore, because it just happens as you drive.
  - rconti 10y ago
    I'd say more like 99.99% of the time, which is the problem. There's very rarely an unexpected obstacle. Also, with a closing speed of 0, a driver swerving into your lane happens no more quickly at 90mph than at 50. (assuming they use correspondingly less steering input so the lateral speed remains the same). But yeah, overall I agree with you. I kind of think every new driver should be forced to drive a Geo Metro or a Miata or something for the first couple of years. (as a former Miata owner, motorcyclist, and stick shift driver).
  - sjg007 10y ago
    People drive way too fast and don't leave enough buffer.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      The buffer thing amazes me, I know people who drive 70 MPH leaving a 5 foot buffer between the and the car in front of them. I have a close my eyes sometimes it makes me so nervous. And it's rude to comment on other people's driving...
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
'Driving' in Los Angeles is totally different. You dont need all your faculties when driving consists of waiting 2 minutes, let foot off brake for 30 seconds, put foot back on brake, repeat 100x. Otherwise, I completely agree. I've owned manual shift cars my whole life. I find that a number of drivers dont really understand how a car and basic physics works. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I would blow my brains out if I didnt have my smartphone to distract me. When you' re driving, everything can be a distraction depending on the ability of the driver. Billboards, eating, applying makeup, smoking, changing the radio and 100's of other different things all can do that. Why pass a smartphones ban, especially since were moving towards a world where most people would get lost driving to their grocery store without gps? It's just an easy, kneejerk response and doesnt solve the real issue. We have way too low a threshold for who counts as a licensed driver. People who can't parallel park, never use their signals, people who get caught in intersections at a red light, dont look before merging or changing lanes, changing 4 lanes at once to make the exit, elderly people who get their license auto-renewed, etc. The hard truth is that there are far too many people on the road in 2 ton missiles who shouldn't have a license in the first place. One driving test for 10 minutes is not a sufficient way to license a driver. Off-topic: I'm also amazed at how many people are clamoring for personal driving to be banned once self-driving cars hit the road. Granted, it does solve a lot of the issues I raised above but, if you want to be alpha testers for a closed source product written by software engineers in the auto industry, go right ahead. This is an industry where a company lied about the emissions of their products for years. Since cars can be on the roads for 20+ years, they had to know eventually they would be caught, but they didnt care. No one is in jail and the threat of a fine wasnt a deterrant. And now people implictly trust them with a new technology? Im going to wait on owning one until an auto company open sources their code and there has been enough time to examine it thoroughly. In short, bring on the self-driving cars but do not make them mandatory. Just make licensing much more strict.
- bbarn 10y ago
  >Im going to wait on owning one until an auto company open sources their code and there has been enough time to examine it thoroughly. In short, bring on the self-driving cars but do not make them mandatory. Just make licensing much more strict. At some point, we'll need to hold people to the same standard as the machines, and then.. when most people can't, we make it mandatory.

by bbarn 10y ago

viraptor 10y ago

> I never got that. Isn't driving supposed to be the only thing you're doing while driving? Kind of. There are different studies showing various kinds of impact. For example: http://content.iospress.com/articles/occupational-ergonomics/oer00144 http://content.iospress.com/articles/occupational-ergonomics... "Music seems to alleviate driver stress and mild aggression while at times facilitating performance. However, during other conditions of music, driving performance is impaired." My own experience is that without music or a podcast in the background I get tired much more quickly. (as in, can do 3h drive without getting exhausted -vs- 1-2h) Because if only thing you have is the engine noise and road ahead, that's the only thing you can focus on, and things really don't change that often. (if your mind doesn't start to wonder / phase out in those conditions - great; mine does) It also helps in the evening a lot. If the whole world is just a cone of light 50m ahead, my mind starts to wonder, or just get sleepy really quickly. Having something unrelated that keeps you mildly interested, but not taking attention seems like a good solution.

niftich 10y ago

In all fairness, the 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an uneventfully featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads. Meanwhile the urban grandfathered interstates are like NASCAR with a concrete wall to one side, and ruthless traffic inches to your side. And even sometimes on a suburban parkway signed for 45, with four lanes going the same way, you fear for your life as SUVs heading home from work weave around you to get two cars ahead. There is a wide variance in driving difficulty throughout the day, even on the same stretch of road, and varying with the amount and nature of traffic, the sun in your eyes, wind, the weather. And as you say, driver assist and safety systems like widespread adaptive cruise control, electronic stability control, blind spot warning, emergency brake assist, and curtain airbags encourage a style of driving that's 'not truly defensive' at best, oblivious at worst. Because why not go the speed limit if cars are so safe and they've got your back? This isn't misplaced nostalgia for the days when driving was more dangerous, but I do believe as cars get safer, situational awareness worsens and riskier behaviors are less likely to result in serious accidents -- so some drivers continue to take more risks.

athenot 10y ago
> 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an uneventfully featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads This is true. 95% of the time, it would be just as safe to be cruising at 90 mph. But for those other 5% where there's an unexpected tire in the middle of the road, a deer, a driver who swerved into your lane or any other danger... a few extra milliseconds to react and respond is what makes the difference between a close call and severe damage. This means driving is condemned to be a mostly boring activity, and in our present age where boredom is to be avoided at all costs, it becomes a magnet for distractions. One solution is to drive a vehicle that requires more immersion: a stick shift car, a convertible, a jeep, a motorcycle, etc. These are vehicles which let you feel the road.
- hvidgaard 10y ago
  A manual car is only engaging below 50mph, above that you're in highest gear anyway. Any once you learn it, it becomes second nature and you don't really engage anymore, because it just happens as you drive.
- rconti 10y ago
  I'd say more like 99.99% of the time, which is the problem. There's very rarely an unexpected obstacle. Also, with a closing speed of 0, a driver swerving into your lane happens no more quickly at 90mph than at 50. (assuming they use correspondingly less steering input so the lateral speed remains the same). But yeah, overall I agree with you. I kind of think every new driver should be forced to drive a Geo Metro or a Miata or something for the first couple of years. (as a former Miata owner, motorcyclist, and stick shift driver).
- sjg007 10y ago
  People drive way too fast and don't leave enough buffer.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    The buffer thing amazes me, I know people who drive 70 MPH leaving a 5 foot buffer between the and the car in front of them. I have a close my eyes sometimes it makes me so nervous. And it's rude to comment on other people's driving...

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

'Driving' in Los Angeles is totally different. You dont need all your faculties when driving consists of waiting 2 minutes, let foot off brake for 30 seconds, put foot back on brake, repeat 100x. Otherwise, I completely agree. I've owned manual shift cars my whole life. I find that a number of drivers dont really understand how a car and basic physics works. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I would blow my brains out if I didnt have my smartphone to distract me. When you' re driving, everything can be a distraction depending on the ability of the driver. Billboards, eating, applying makeup, smoking, changing the radio and 100's of other different things all can do that. Why pass a smartphones ban, especially since were moving towards a world where most people would get lost driving to their grocery store without gps? It's just an easy, kneejerk response and doesnt solve the real issue. We have way too low a threshold for who counts as a licensed driver. People who can't parallel park, never use their signals, people who get caught in intersections at a red light, dont look before merging or changing lanes, changing 4 lanes at once to make the exit, elderly people who get their license auto-renewed, etc. The hard truth is that there are far too many people on the road in 2 ton missiles who shouldn't have a license in the first place. One driving test for 10 minutes is not a sufficient way to license a driver. Off-topic: I'm also amazed at how many people are clamoring for personal driving to be banned once self-driving cars hit the road. Granted, it does solve a lot of the issues I raised above but, if you want to be alpha testers for a closed source product written by software engineers in the auto industry, go right ahead. This is an industry where a company lied about the emissions of their products for years. Since cars can be on the roads for 20+ years, they had to know eventually they would be caught, but they didnt care. No one is in jail and the threat of a fine wasnt a deterrant. And now people implictly trust them with a new technology? Im going to wait on owning one until an auto company open sources their code and there has been enough time to examine it thoroughly. In short, bring on the self-driving cars but do not make them mandatory. Just make licensing much more strict.

bbarn 10y ago
>Im going to wait on owning one until an auto company open sources their code and there has been enough time to examine it thoroughly. In short, bring on the self-driving cars but do not make them mandatory. Just make licensing much more strict. At some point, we'll need to hold people to the same standard as the machines, and then.. when most people can't, we make it mandatory.