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Headline: "Blame Apps" Evidence given in the article: - "Safety experts say" that it's true. The experts are not named or quoted. No evidence or reasoning is

• Plasticover 10y ago
  "One driver who caused a fatal accident was using Snapchat shortly before the crash. This driver was also going at 115 mph. It goes without saying, therefore, that Snapchat is to blame, not speeding or general recklessness." The Snapchat was taken by the passenger. They were even hinting at racing being a factor. It seems like a bad example all around. I am sure apps contribute to some road fatalities but this was clearly a case of a driver crashing because they were going 115 miles a fucking hour on a populated road.
• hueving 10y ago
  Standard NY times reporting quality. You have to take it with a grain of salt or be in a position where their editorial viewpoint aligns with yours enough for you to ignore these evidence requirements.
• mck- 10y ago
  Next decade, the NYT will run another story titled: "Biggest drop in traffic deaths in 60 years". Autonomous cars are around the corner and it's the only way to truly make a leap forward in terms of traffic safety. And people can spend even more time on their apps while commuting, uninterrupted by this soon-to-be-forgotten distraction called "manual driving". Incidentally wrote a blog about this today: https://medium.com/self-driving-cars/safer-roads-and-cleaner-air-with-autonomous-fleets-91b5d879be68#.1m9yo6lm7 https://medium.com/self-driving-cars/safer-roads-and-cleaner...
• m_mueller 10y ago
  Also, just look at that graph they posted (can't be linked to because the labels are not included in the png file). Biggest spike in 50 years? More like a minor blip in a steady downwards trend.
  • varjag 10y ago
    That blip is probably thousands of dead people.
    • zaroth 10y ago
      That graph is probably millions of dead people.
      • varjag 10y ago
        There were 1.25 million estimated road fatalities worldwide in 2015, so a 1% blip would amount to 12.5 thousand. So yes this blip represents very real entirely avoidable deaths, as the offset of the traditional downward trend suggests.
        • zaroth 10y ago
          Who said anything about worldwide fatalities? Apples and oranges. "Entirely avoidable" is a strange term in this context. All 1.25 million deaths were technically avoidable, but not without causing significantly worse harm, suffering, and death instead. We don't actually know what caused the increase, right now we're just speculating. Now, the NHTSA puts a $6.0 million price tag on the economic value of preventing a US traffic fatality, and based on that figure we prevent as much as we can.
• ramblenode 10y ago
  I'm not sure if I've become more cognizant of bad journalism over time or simply hold journalism to a higher standard with the rise of publicly available data sets which could be used for real insight into questions like this. Whichever one, I am infrequently satisfied with the level of evidence that supports an article's conclusion. I would love to see a truly data-driven news publication that made quantifying uncertainty a priority over creating a digestible narrative for people who'd rather the author does the thinking for them.
  • treehau5 10y ago
    Statistics and data are a means, not an end. Narratives and conclusions must be made by people. That said, I agree a little more data wouldn't hurt.
    • flukus 10y ago
      That's the problem. I don't want my news to be narratives and conclusions.
      • sidlls 10y ago
        News isn't experimental data.
        • flukus 10y ago
          No, but they can report information without having to turn stuff into a narrative.
          • jacobush 10y ago
            Then we will complain about that. "Yes, but what does it MEAN?!"
  • milkytron 10y ago
    Unfortunately, news today isn't meant to be as accurate as it is meant to be popular. Sure, accuracy will provide stability in the long term. But for immediate popularity, appealing titles are what creates viewers, which is revenue in terms of ads. It's the sad reality of click bait, and it's hard to place blame. Is it the ad network? The"news" outlet? The viewers? Maybe it's all three, but what I do know is that there is a problem with news on the web.
• saretired 10y ago
  Interesting reaction to the quote from Robert Gordon of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. PCI is an umbrella lobby for insurers; their website says they represent writers of 42% of automobile policies in the U.S. Since insurers are in the business of understanding and quantifying the risks they insure against, I'm willing to assume that he and PCI are knowledgeable about this issue.
• brohoolio 10y ago
  It's true. I see so many people looking down now at their phones while driving. I'm not sure why it's acceptable now, but it's commonplace. I counted at least 10 drivers on my 12 minute commute yesterday. The scariest one was someone coming in the opposite direction who didn't look up in the 5 seconds I was driving past him. It would have been easy for him to drift into a head on collision.
  • Ntrails 10y ago
    I'll check my messages at a traffic light, or flick to the next song whilst driving. I don't see any particular danger in these things (apart from possibly angering the poor bugger behind me if I'm slow to notice the lights change). Much like ye olden days of changing a cassette or tuning the radio - there are times and place to pay less attention. People just need to be sensible.
    • mnw21cam 10y ago
      Do that in the UK in front of a police officer, and expect several points on your licence and a fine. You're only allowed to use a distracting device in similar circumstances as you are allowed to be drunk. Arguing with an officer that you are parked by the side of the road is not sufficient if for example you have the engine on. In some circumstances just sitting in the driver's seat while in possession of the keys and drunk is enough for a conviction.
      • zaroth 10y ago
        I guess I'm glad I don't live there! A parked car is a perfect place to have a phone call or queue up tunes for the ride. A stop light, not so much. Are you not allowed to use Maps for navigation too?
        • throwanem 10y ago
          I drive but rarely, and finally had a chance last month to use my phone's voice-prompted turn-by-turn navigation mode. It was great! Like any human navigator I've ever worked with, except never hesitant or uncertain and always on the ball with the next turn well in advance of reaching it. I really have no idea why anyone would want to navigate by looking at a moving map display. If you know where you're going, you're far better off to keep your eyes on the road and use the voice prompts to get there. If you don't know where you're going - well, that's a bigger problem, and one that no navigation system will solve.
• elcct 10y ago
  They obviously have agenda. Perhaps some restrictions on apps are coming into legislation and they want to "soften" the public on the matter or just "test the waters". Same type of "journalism" you can see in illegal drugs themed articles
  • usrusr 10y ago
    > They obviously have agenda. Could a desire for safe roads be one? Drivers on smartphones kill.
    • elcct 10y ago
      Drivers that are not fit to drive kill. In this case drivers that cannot pay attention to the road. Smartphones have nothing to do with that.
      • usrusr 10y ago
        The lure of the smartphone is pushing a number of drivers over the threshold of insufficient attention. They would be less distracted without. It's not like drivers had an individually fixed amount of distraction that they would distribute on whatever media at hand, it's the attention that is limited and far too many drivers don't allocate it correctly when their phone is around. Unfortunately, using a smartphone while driving is far more common than using the newspaper while driving has ever been. This has everything to do with the difference between smartphones and newspapers.
  • TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Or they just know that they have a significant population of readers who think computers and smartphones are unnatural, evil and genetically modified poison, and that they have another significant population of readers who will call them out on the bullshit. Igniting a powderkeg of polarized readers is a great way to drive traffic, and therefore ad money. Yes, it seems like standard operating procedure for contemporary media.
    • 10y ago
• lifeisstillgood 10y ago
  Yes but... evidence like this is hard to acquire - the most you can get is convincing circumstantial evidence (if the phone survives get accelerometer and activity use from it. That sounds like a worthwhile branch of forensics) And even if we do it's hard to go from circumstantial to causal But as a driver, I can (un)happily attest that I am distracted from the road if trying to do anything non trivial with my podcast app (the only thing I will let myself use) Having physical on steering wheel buttons will reduce this but not end it. Perhaps we just ban radios, phones etc as a precaution. (Ok actually we can do an experiment - force 50% of drivers to never use a phone or similar and 50% donwhat they like. See who's dead after six months)
  • kriro 10y ago
    There have been quite a few simulator studies that have shown significantly worse driving for cell phone users. Granted it's a jump from that to the real world. I remember one from a while back that showed that cell phone users were as bad as drunk drivers with a relatively low intoxication but they were bad in different ways (distraction vs. aggression). I'm sure there must be similar studies in real world settings or at least fenced of tracks or something (I only remember because I researched 3d simulation and these studies showed up). Figuring out the cause of an accident post accident in a methodically clean (and legal) way is probably non-trivial though. I don't think it's horrible to hypothesize that more accidents could be related to some recent tech trend. I'd say texting would be a good variable conduct some research on (as opposed to cell phone calls etc.). Obviously the author went beyond formulating a hypothesis though.
    • Freak_NL 10y ago
      > Granted it's a jump from that to the real world. Not that much of a jump though. I wonder how much more evidence is needed for people to accept that having an active smartphone within range of your eyes and ears while driving is a major risk factor? You don't even have to use the thing; just knowing that notifications can show up any time now is enough to distract our primate brain. We've evolved to be able to detect and act on minute movements spotted in the corners of our eyes on the grassy plains, because it might just be a tiger lurking there. It's a (very effective, if you are a hunter-gatherer on a steppe) survival mechanism. By now there are plenty of studies performed in driving simulators that proof that smartphones distract you significantly. Of course hard empiric real world data is hard to get by, because people involved in a crash will tend to deny or downplay the use or presence of a smartphone, so data from real world accidents is of limited use. What we do have is a lot of anecdotal real world observations by participants and traffic experts, where people conclude that a smartphone did indeed distract them to the point of (near) accidents, or where police officers on highway patrol can pick out someone texting based purely on the swerving of their vehicle (which they then confirm when the overtake them). But the point is that real world data cannot be ethically obtained in a controlled scientific manner for this topic — you can't let one group drive using their smartphone and another not. Even here on HN it seems like a lot of people are downplaying the risk of smartphones in traffic, despite ample evidence pointing to just that conclusion. Is this one of those inconvenient truths?
• midgetjones 10y ago
  > One driver who caused a fatal accident was using Snapchat shortly before the crash. This driver was also going at 115 mph. I've always thought it was irresponsible that snapchat has a camera mode that overlays your current speed on the picture. What else is it going to be used for? Showing how fast your bus is travelling?
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• venomsnake 10y ago
  Don't forget that cars get progressively safer with each passing year. So and uptick could actually mean quite a spike if you normalize.
  • zaroth 10y ago
    Great point - so is it possible the fleet as a whole got less safe last year? Or less more safe than usual? My recollection is that car buying is doing just fine lately so I doubt it, but would have been a good point to make in TFA instead of another anecdote.
• Shivetya 10y ago
  while the headline is sensational the use of mobile devices leading to more accidents is not. as an avid motorcyclist I tend to pay more attention to what people are doing around me and especially those who can cross my path. I cannot count on my drive to work the number of times I see people looking at their phones. The head down move which is all to obvious to the arm out towards the driver seat to the blatant on top of the steering wheel. I used to think it was bad they were using the phones while driving, but that isn't near as bad as what goes on today. There is enough tech in smart phones to know when they are in modern cars and definitely to know they are moving. If anything they could blank the screen and with full connectivity of Apple and Google play type technologies they easily can tell if the car is operating. I know, but what about passengers. Well what about safety. Distracted driving is as dangerous if not more than impaired driving. At least the impaired driver is making an effort at driving
• waylandsmithers 10y ago
  I'd say this is one of the greatest challenges journalists face: Sometimes you talk to a lot of people and do a lot of research only to find out there is no story. "Smartphone usage increase while driving has caused more accidents" is a nice narrative that totally _makes sense_, but unfortunately only becomes newsworthy if there is evidence that the reporter can find-- perhaps from highway patrols and police officers, mobile data usage stats, or I suppose anecdotally from someone who studies this stuff. But sometimes that's not available, or it is and goes against the original narrative. At that point the reporter can either choose to tell their editor that there is no story, or go out seeking confirmation of the original narrative.
  • marcosdumay 10y ago
    > At that point the reporter can either choose to tell their editor that there is no story, or willfully publish some lies. Let's not paper over it. That's what those newspapers are doing. And then, they wonder why people won't read them anymore...
• DominikR 10y ago
  It is likely not true as this was printed in the New York Times. Their journalists and editors are mostly Socialists so they are bound to generate one article after another following the narrative that we should ban something because smart technocrats in their infinite wisdom have again found a reason why they know best what we ignorant masses should do. The mentioned safety expert is probably the NYT journalist who wrote the article. They are experts on every single issue they have an opinion on. Look, it's even printed in the NYT, so they must be experts by definition. Edit: You can even see that they are Socialists by looking at the headline. Blame apps instead of reckless individuals. That's because it's always the fault of some outside force when something goes horribly wrong, people are just dumb sheep in dire need of upgrade to the Socialist Übermensch, didn't you know? Every solution is a central planning solution, in this case a new regulation. Forget liberty, this is only for backwards rednecks clinging to their guns and religion.
• cujo 10y ago
  I wish there was a browser plugin or something that would give you a vetted synopsis like this for articles you view. Best comment I've seen in a long while.
• emodendroket 10y ago
  > The experts are not named or quoted. It seems like Mark R. Rosekind, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is being quoted and is among those experts. Then it goes on to cite a couple cases and claim that the Department of Transportation and the National Safety Council are also worried. I mean really the citations keep going so I don't get your argument
• eternalban 10y ago
  How is it possible you haven't noted that these devices affect a subset of population in a manner that can be fairly described as 'mesmerized'? "going 115 mph" on Snapchat. Isn't the mere fact that someone would feel compelled to chat at 115 mph enough? I remember my younger days when I edged closed to that number going from NYC to Troy on 95 and even adjusting the tune or lighting a cig was a very deliberate operation. If you are texting at that speed, some part of your rational mind has been short circuited.
  • clifanatic 10y ago
    > I remember my younger days when I edged closed to that number But you didn't die, so it must be Snapchat.
    • eternalban 10y ago
      I was entirely focused on the machine and the road.