6 ms·

also conducted a survey that indicates some possible causes for the steady increases, including speed, texting via touch input or voice, as well as driving whil

by finid 10y ago

also conducted a survey that indicates some possible causes for the steady increases, including speed, texting via touch input or voice, as well as driving while under the influence. I think most of it can be attributed to cellphone usage while driving. And now that most drivers choose to use their smartphones as GPS rather than a dedicated GPS device, I think it's going to get much worse.

astrodust 10y ago
Distracted driving could be come epidemic if not curtailed somehow.
- flying_kangaroo 10y ago
  I'd say "is" rather than "could become", personally.
mildbow 10y ago
I think GPS is secondary: you can easily get a mount for it. Based on experience, the most likely explanation is texting or voice calls. When I got a new car with bluetooth calling, all of a sudden I was fumbling a lot less. A call is now about the same level of distraction as having a passenger or 2. Texting however, I have no idea. Maybe something that moves texting to voice, but I haven't seen anything actually make that work. And, it's distracting enough that I just don't text while driving: sending ETA updates or w/e isn't worth risking my life over.
- tzs 10y ago
  > When I got a new car with bluetooth calling, all of a sudden I was fumbling a lot less. A call is now about the same level of distraction as having a passenger or 2. Most studies that have actually tested it have found that talking with someone on a phone, even if hands free, is much more distracting than talking to a passenger. A big factor is that a passenger is much more likely to be aware of road and traffic conditions and stop the conversation during situations where the driver needs to pay extra attention to driving.
  - mildbow 10y ago
    Sounds plausible that it's more distracting, but I'm not convinced that the difference is more varied than found among different types of passengers (back-seat driver/kids/dumb friends/audiobook(?) etc) If you have a few studies that show more than that, I would be glad to check it out.
    - tzs 10y ago
      I don't know of any that have looked at different types of passengers. They have usually just compared an adult passenger talking with the driver to an adult on a phone talking with the driver. Here was a recent study that was pretty interesting: https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/204502 https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/204502 Here's an older one: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081201081917.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081201081917.h...
      - mildbow 10y ago
        thanks, I appreciate the links :)
quicklyfrozen 10y ago
I think some of it must be an unintended consequence of usage bans. People still do it, they just keep the phone out of sight, and this keeps their concentration off the road for longer. (And of course you can't type by feel on a virtual keyboard.)
- donatj 10y ago
  This. I text while driving very rarely, but when it was legal I would with my arm straight ahead so I could see the road and my phone. My phone's now been relegated to below the dash.
  - jasonkostempski 10y ago
    Stop fucking texting while driving!
    - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
      Or, in the spirit of HN: texting while driving looks like an industry ripe for disruption. You have my permission to use this as your next start-up idea.
- WWLink 10y ago
  But it's not out of sight! Perhaps you don't realize how obvious it is! If you're in an SUV, you can easily see the phones on people's laps. If you're in a car, you can still tell because people don't normally stare at their crotch while at a red light. Even if they hold it higher, you can still tell they're not looking around them. ... Finally if all else fails, at night you can see the reflection of light from their phone. In LA I would guess something like 75% of drivers use their phones at red lights. It makes the delay of cars starting to move when a light turns green super annoying.
nostromo 10y ago
I don't think there's any data to support that. Smart phone penetration in the US has been above 75% for many years now, so you'd have to explain why there's a jump in fatalities now but wasn't as smart phone penetration went from 0% to 75%. Secondly, this data should be controlled for miles driven. Otherwise a growing population and a growing economy can be misconstrued as roadways becoming more dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
- YZF 10y ago
  Anecdotally there are a lot more people glued to their screens than there used to be. I think one factor is younger people who become drivers after already have been addicted to their smart phones. It used to be that you could tell from a distance who was talking on their phone while driving. They would drift off their lane and correct randomly. At least while talking you have some % of your attention on driving, if low. While texting or interacting with the device's screen you have just about 0 attention left for other tasks. And you often don't even realize it... There must be some data specific to distracted driving you'd think... EDIT: Some data: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951952/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951952/ http://www.fleetfinancials.com/article/story/2011/09/5-year-analysis-accident-management-trends.aspx http://www.fleetfinancials.com/article/story/2011/09/5-year-... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/distracted-driving-texting-will-become-largest-cause-of-teen-deaths-1.3488719 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/distracted-dr...
up_and_up 10y ago
> I think most of it can be attributed to cellphone usage while driving. This. My car insurance went up 25% recently b/c of this trend. That's right, OTHER PEOPLES behavior is costing me money. I guess thats how insurance works though right. I mean the insurance companies need to be guaranteed to make money right???
- maxerickson 10y ago
  More or less, yes they do need to be guaranteed to make money. At least on average anyway. Or they will stop writing insurance policies.
  - finid 10y ago
    The insurance business is the best racket to be in, same as private prison industry. Customers are guaranteed.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      That's all hip and cynical, but I'm pretty sure motor vehicle insurance would be a good business even if states didn't mandate that people carry it. It'd be more expensive for the people that did carry it, but it'd be a large business. And of course, in many states there is the option to post a bond to prove ability to compensate.
      - rascul 10y ago
        You might check out New Hampshire. I don't have a reference handy, but I recall reading that they don't require insurance yet have more people insured than most other states.
    - bjterry 10y ago
      That only helps as long as there aren't many insurance companies. If there are many insurance companies, competition between them drives the costs down to marginal cost plus normal profit, in theory.
chinathrow 10y ago
I blame the various fingerprint scanners within phones. I have have a strong password on Android - no chance I will ever type that while driving.
mindslight 10y ago
Honestly let's not refer to the problem as cellphone usage, but touchscreen usage. I can't fathom how builtin touchscreens on center consoles are even blessed by the DOT (especially with the horrendous input lag "modern" implementations generally have), but for their being "hip".
- joezydeco 10y ago
  My 2016 Mazda disables the touchscreen when the car is in motion. I thought perhaps that was a NHTSA rule, but given cars like the Tesla S (where the screen operates everything not just the IVI) I guess it's not a firm requirement.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    2016 Mazdas have the screen in your line of sight rather than down, and a non-touch input device (a click wheel in the center armrest). Unfortunately Mazdas are the only economy cars that seem to care about this. For many others, it's a laggy touchscreen well below the vents. Very happy with the old fashioned tactile controls on my 2012 VW.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  Sadly, they aren't mutually exclusive. Driving while distracted is a huge problem. Denial of that problem by people who have it is in itself also a huge problem. Apparently current levels of laws and penalties aren't sufficient to deter it, so something stronger may be needed. Awful controls and interfaces in cars are also a problem. The number of gadgets and displays and distractions of all sorts in modern vehicles is disturbing. Laggy touchscreens are a prime example. Speak-out-loud systems and voice activated systems with poor speech recognition are other weak areas. I find it amazing that when cars are probably the second most expensive thing most of us ever buy, we accept such crude and poorly designed control systems, but there seems to be little concern in the industry because they're all just about as bad as each other. Again, at some point stronger regulation may be needed.
  - dukeluke 10y ago

by finid 10y ago

astrodust 10y ago

Distracted driving could be come epidemic if not curtailed somehow.

flying_kangaroo 10y ago
I'd say "is" rather than "could become", personally.

mildbow 10y ago

I think GPS is secondary: you can easily get a mount for it. Based on experience, the most likely explanation is texting or voice calls. When I got a new car with bluetooth calling, all of a sudden I was fumbling a lot less. A call is now about the same level of distraction as having a passenger or 2. Texting however, I have no idea. Maybe something that moves texting to voice, but I haven't seen anything actually make that work. And, it's distracting enough that I just don't text while driving: sending ETA updates or w/e isn't worth risking my life over.

tzs 10y ago
> When I got a new car with bluetooth calling, all of a sudden I was fumbling a lot less. A call is now about the same level of distraction as having a passenger or 2. Most studies that have actually tested it have found that talking with someone on a phone, even if hands free, is much more distracting than talking to a passenger. A big factor is that a passenger is much more likely to be aware of road and traffic conditions and stop the conversation during situations where the driver needs to pay extra attention to driving.
- mildbow 10y ago
  Sounds plausible that it's more distracting, but I'm not convinced that the difference is more varied than found among different types of passengers (back-seat driver/kids/dumb friends/audiobook(?) etc) If you have a few studies that show more than that, I would be glad to check it out.
  - tzs 10y ago
    I don't know of any that have looked at different types of passengers. They have usually just compared an adult passenger talking with the driver to an adult on a phone talking with the driver. Here was a recent study that was pretty interesting: https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/204502 https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/204502 Here's an older one: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081201081917.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081201081917.h...
    - mildbow 10y ago
      thanks, I appreciate the links :)

quicklyfrozen 10y ago

I think some of it must be an unintended consequence of usage bans. People still do it, they just keep the phone out of sight, and this keeps their concentration off the road for longer. (And of course you can't type by feel on a virtual keyboard.)

donatj 10y ago
This. I text while driving very rarely, but when it was legal I would with my arm straight ahead so I could see the road and my phone. My phone's now been relegated to below the dash.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  Stop fucking texting while driving!
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    Or, in the spirit of HN: texting while driving looks like an industry ripe for disruption. You have my permission to use this as your next start-up idea.
WWLink 10y ago
But it's not out of sight! Perhaps you don't realize how obvious it is! If you're in an SUV, you can easily see the phones on people's laps. If you're in a car, you can still tell because people don't normally stare at their crotch while at a red light. Even if they hold it higher, you can still tell they're not looking around them. ... Finally if all else fails, at night you can see the reflection of light from their phone. In LA I would guess something like 75% of drivers use their phones at red lights. It makes the delay of cars starting to move when a light turns green super annoying.

nostromo 10y ago

I don't think there's any data to support that. Smart phone penetration in the US has been above 75% for many years now, so you'd have to explain why there's a jump in fatalities now but wasn't as smart phone penetration went from 0% to 75%. Secondly, this data should be controlled for miles driven. Otherwise a growing population and a growing economy can be misconstrued as roadways becoming more dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

YZF 10y ago
Anecdotally there are a lot more people glued to their screens than there used to be. I think one factor is younger people who become drivers after already have been addicted to their smart phones. It used to be that you could tell from a distance who was talking on their phone while driving. They would drift off their lane and correct randomly. At least while talking you have some % of your attention on driving, if low. While texting or interacting with the device's screen you have just about 0 attention left for other tasks. And you often don't even realize it... There must be some data specific to distracted driving you'd think... EDIT: Some data: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951952/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951952/ http://www.fleetfinancials.com/article/story/2011/09/5-year-analysis-accident-management-trends.aspx http://www.fleetfinancials.com/article/story/2011/09/5-year-... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/distracted-driving-texting-will-become-largest-cause-of-teen-deaths-1.3488719 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/distracted-dr...

up_and_up 10y ago

> I think most of it can be attributed to cellphone usage while driving. This. My car insurance went up 25% recently b/c of this trend. That's right, OTHER PEOPLES behavior is costing me money. I guess thats how insurance works though right. I mean the insurance companies need to be guaranteed to make money right???

maxerickson 10y ago
More or less, yes they do need to be guaranteed to make money. At least on average anyway. Or they will stop writing insurance policies.
- finid 10y ago
  The insurance business is the best racket to be in, same as private prison industry. Customers are guaranteed.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    That's all hip and cynical, but I'm pretty sure motor vehicle insurance would be a good business even if states didn't mandate that people carry it. It'd be more expensive for the people that did carry it, but it'd be a large business. And of course, in many states there is the option to post a bond to prove ability to compensate.
    - rascul 10y ago
      You might check out New Hampshire. I don't have a reference handy, but I recall reading that they don't require insurance yet have more people insured than most other states.
  - bjterry 10y ago
    That only helps as long as there aren't many insurance companies. If there are many insurance companies, competition between them drives the costs down to marginal cost plus normal profit, in theory.

chinathrow 10y ago

I blame the various fingerprint scanners within phones. I have have a strong password on Android - no chance I will ever type that while driving.

mindslight 10y ago

Honestly let's not refer to the problem as cellphone usage, but touchscreen usage. I can't fathom how builtin touchscreens on center consoles are even blessed by the DOT (especially with the horrendous input lag "modern" implementations generally have), but for their being "hip".

joezydeco 10y ago
My 2016 Mazda disables the touchscreen when the car is in motion. I thought perhaps that was a NHTSA rule, but given cars like the Tesla S (where the screen operates everything not just the IVI) I guess it's not a firm requirement.
- closeparen 10y ago
  2016 Mazdas have the screen in your line of sight rather than down, and a non-touch input device (a click wheel in the center armrest). Unfortunately Mazdas are the only economy cars that seem to care about this. For many others, it's a laggy touchscreen well below the vents. Very happy with the old fashioned tactile controls on my 2012 VW.
Silhouette 10y ago
Sadly, they aren't mutually exclusive. Driving while distracted is a huge problem. Denial of that problem by people who have it is in itself also a huge problem. Apparently current levels of laws and penalties aren't sufficient to deter it, so something stronger may be needed. Awful controls and interfaces in cars are also a problem. The number of gadgets and displays and distractions of all sorts in modern vehicles is disturbing. Laggy touchscreens are a prime example. Speak-out-loud systems and voice activated systems with poor speech recognition are other weak areas. I find it amazing that when cars are probably the second most expensive thing most of us ever buy, we accept such crude and poorly designed control systems, but there seems to be little concern in the industry because they're all just about as bad as each other. Again, at some point stronger regulation may be needed.
- dukeluke 10y ago