4 ms·

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 proble

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
Tacking stronger legislation onto a social problem is why the War on Drugs exists, which hurts more than it helps. I'm not saying we shouldn't add stronger legislation, but maybe we should gather data on whether or not it would be more effective than an education & awareness campaign.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  I'm all for evidence-based policy-making, so I would have no objection in principle to considering alternatives like a public education campaign. That said, in this particular case, we had plenty of campaigning when existing laws were introduced here in the UK, and that doesn't seem to have been very effective. The near-total lack of enforcement means those who find using their phone while driving convenient continue to do so, despite the mountain of evidence about how dangerous it is. Worse, because we didn't also ban hands-free use, despite the mountain of evidence that it is almost as bad as hand-held phone use in terms of impairing driver performance, vendors of hands-free kits were literally putting up six foot high stands at the entrances to major stores the week after the ban came in with captions like "Stay safe -- go hands-free!" all over them. If we're going to solve this one, I suspect what we need is a combination of education and enforcement, both much stronger than we have seen so far. The number of people I come across online who maintain that they drive while using a phone all the time and are still perfectly safe is genuinely alarming.
mindslight 10y ago
Oh definitely. But my point is touchscreens add to that distraction, in an imperceptible way. Texting while driving wasn't such an epidemic with T9, which had much societal adoption. I admit the sheer volume has gone up since then, but personally I recall it being relatively easy to enter a message only having to look at the screen occasionally to verify input. A touchscreen requires one to look at the screen to make input. This insidiously creeps into one's OODA loop, sapping attention in a way that felt much harder to be aware of (since the "atomic task" of entering a letter now has a variable delay). Likewise, I've done two cross country round trips with a handheld GPS unit (Garmin 60CSx), which my right hand operated just fine, including shifting. I wasn't using it for routing, but a "you are here map" with crow-flies distance. Most critical use was in denser cityish areas, that require more shifting and navigating traffic, and I still never felt distracted. Meanwhile even just starting Waze seems like a massive distraction that I'd rather only do while stopped - nevermind navigating any of its modal dialogs.

dukeluke 10y ago

Tacking stronger legislation onto a social problem is why the War on Drugs exists, which hurts more than it helps. I'm not saying we shouldn't add stronger legislation, but maybe we should gather data on whether or not it would be more effective than an education & awareness campaign.

Silhouette 10y ago
I'm all for evidence-based policy-making, so I would have no objection in principle to considering alternatives like a public education campaign. That said, in this particular case, we had plenty of campaigning when existing laws were introduced here in the UK, and that doesn't seem to have been very effective. The near-total lack of enforcement means those who find using their phone while driving convenient continue to do so, despite the mountain of evidence about how dangerous it is. Worse, because we didn't also ban hands-free use, despite the mountain of evidence that it is almost as bad as hand-held phone use in terms of impairing driver performance, vendors of hands-free kits were literally putting up six foot high stands at the entrances to major stores the week after the ban came in with captions like "Stay safe -- go hands-free!" all over them. If we're going to solve this one, I suspect what we need is a combination of education and enforcement, both much stronger than we have seen so far. The number of people I come across online who maintain that they drive while using a phone all the time and are still perfectly safe is genuinely alarming.

mindslight 10y ago

Oh definitely. But my point is touchscreens add to that distraction, in an imperceptible way. Texting while driving wasn't such an epidemic with T9, which had much societal adoption. I admit the sheer volume has gone up since then, but personally I recall it being relatively easy to enter a message only having to look at the screen occasionally to verify input. A touchscreen requires one to look at the screen to make input. This insidiously creeps into one's OODA loop, sapping attention in a way that felt much harder to be aware of (since the "atomic task" of entering a letter now has a variable delay). Likewise, I've done two cross country round trips with a handheld GPS unit (Garmin 60CSx), which my right hand operated just fine, including shifting. I wasn't using it for routing, but a "you are here map" with crow-flies distance. Most critical use was in denser cityish areas, that require more shifting and navigating traffic, and I still never felt distracted. Meanwhile even just starting Waze seems like a massive distraction that I'd rather only do while stopped - nevermind navigating any of its modal dialogs.