7 ms·

We already have regulations. It's not working. I'm perfectly content for a phone to detect via GPS/IMU that it's in a moving vehicle and send up a big angry pr

We already have regulations. It's not working. I'm perfectly content for a phone to detect via GPS/IMU that it's in a moving vehicle and send up a big angry prompt like "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." I say this as a bike commuter who sees phones being used at stoplights every day, and as a parent of kids who walk to school. But also has a driver who occasionally fiddles with Google Maps on the road and could use the reminder myself.

gbrown 8y ago
Don't get me wrong, I bike too. I also have little faith that this sort of system will be implemented effectively and transparently. I also don't think it should be legal in the first place to gather this kind of data without informed consent (no, TOS doesn't count). There's so much going on in industry that an IRB wouldn't touch, and that's where I think we need more regulation. (I also think we need change-lanes-to-pass bills, better bike infrastructure, more regulation on car infotainment systems, and GOOD approaches to punishing and preventing distracted driving).
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  The OP's dialog box was: "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." Clicking OK on that dialog box sounds like informed consent to me.
  - gbrown 8y ago
    First, it's not clear to me that this is what is being proposed - instead, it sounds like the companies involved get their surveillance tech rolled into other apps like adware. Second, even if enrollment in the program was done more carefully (people shouldn't find out suddenly and in unfamiliar ways about intrusive technology), you'd REALLY want to study this to make sure that the jarring warning doesn't cause even more accidents. I'm not against using technology to improve public safety, but I'm against half-assed ideas which would never hold up under reasonable peer or institutional review without a lot more careful consideration of safety and privacy.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    "CITIZEN, phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement." maybe I'm just one of those freedom-addled american cowboys, but I don't ever want to get a message like that from a device I own. save that for the computers at work or jail.
    - anonymou2 8y ago
      You don't own your phone, unless you run replicant on it. And even then you still have the proprietary modem.
- megy 8y ago
  I disagree, I think every single car should be constantly tracked, and what the driver is doing tracked as well. 40,000 people die every single year in the US, more than gun deaths. Cars are killing machines.
  - whenchamenia 8y ago
    That is terrifying. Why do you want everyone tracked? Deaths are not somehow prevented by surveilance.
tasty_freeze 8y ago
> I say this as a bike commuter who sees phones being used at stoplights every day Why is this a problem? I don't mess with my phone while I'm driving, but if I'm sitting at a light for a minute or two, I'll take a peek if, say, a text message came in while I was moving, just to make sure it isn't something important from my wife or daughter.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  Well, when I'm behind someone fiddling with their phone and it takes them an extra five seconds to start moving (and only because I beeped my horn to prompt them to look up), I think it's a problem. We're all trying to get to our destinations safely and quickly. This means traffic has to flow, or we all sit around longer getting more aggravated about it.
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    This is a fair sentiment, but I'm much more concerned about the safety implications than the inconvenience caused by a five second delay. The same delay can come from lots of legitimate sources— weather conditions, road work, delaying passing a cyclist because there isn't room to give the full meter, stopping for a schoolbus, whatever. When we're in a mindset that the smallest delay is intolerable, it becomes harder to be patient in the cases where slowing your vehicle is actually the safer choice (which, of course, is most of them).
  - Noumenon72 8y ago
    I feel that this problem is self-correcting, since you will get beeped at every time (reliable negative reinforcement) and no one actually wants to sit at a green light, so there's no selfish incentive involved.
  - loeg 8y ago
    Inconvenience isn't good, but it's a distant second fiddle to safety.
- rconti 8y ago
  I do the same, but please think of the people behind you. If you ever fail to react to traffic in front of you going immediately, you have just wasted several minutes of the lives of everyone behind you, as far back as the backup goes (for example at a traffic light). I'm EXTREMELY diligent, but some folks apparently have no concern for others.
rootusrootus 8y ago
My phone already does that (well, the prompt at least, if not the legal warning). I bet it does little to deter someone who has decided they have some legitimate reason to look at their phone. Effectively it just adds another step so the distraction lasts even longer.
i_am_proteus 8y ago
I'm scared by what I see on my bicycle. I'm terrified by what I see on my motorcycle-- drivers texting at 80 mph. The laws exist, but I have yet to see an effective enforcement mechanism.
- fmajid 8y ago
  I'm terrified that you are looking at the driver next to you instead of paying attention to the road in front of you, let alone at 80mph.
  - i_am_proteus 8y ago
    You don't shoulder-check before switching lanes? It's a safety measure, and is taught in most driving/riding programs.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      I shoulder check but I'm not able to clearly make out what the other drivers are doing unless I'm way too close to be making a lane change.
      - genocidicbunny 8y ago
        It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to notice them looking down and slightly to the right, or very hard down. Humans are good at noticing what other people are looking at, so it doesn't take more than a moment to figure out if someone's looking at something either than the road. From there, it's a relatively safe bet if they're not looking at the road, they're looking at this phone. I see this all the time in a car, but maybe Ive trained myself to pay attention to this considering how many drivers use their phones while driving.
      - int_19h 8y ago
        Phones are very easy to spot, because it's a tiny glowing screen in an otherwise dark car.
RaceWon 8y ago
> I say this as a bike commuter who sees phones I' m probably going to get downvoted however: as a person who basically spent their entire adult life getting better at driving, (every single activity I have done since I was 17 was done to improve my driving: visual exercises, concentration exercises, sports, street racing, racing schools, advanced racing schools, advaced slide control training, lapping days, sports psychologist, exercise physiologist, organized open wheel racing and so on and so on... am I any good? I was offered fully funded racing contract, I was once pulled over by the police who inquired how it is possible to drive so well he said "it's like the car has eyes." I have anhiliated laptimes of National race winners and professional racing instructors. And yes, I ride a racing style bicycle--but mainly to improve my balance for driving.) I can guarantee you this as an Expert Driver; if you ride on the street with cars YOU are BEGGING to Be Hit And KILLED, and I know what the laws are--I'm stating my Expert opinion... and I Know I'm not wrong.
fmajid 8y ago
My iPhone does this simply on the basis of being connected to a car's bluetooth. Most likely it's the driver doing this.
stordoff 8y ago
> "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." So track people when they are the passenger, or are on a train? I'm not sure that strikes the right balance.
loeg 8y ago
> I'm perfectly content for a phone to detect via GPS/IMU that it's in a moving vehicle and send up a big angry prompt like "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." This makes sense if you sort of assume all trips are by car by default, but in places with mass transit this is a useless nuisance for people who mostly take the bus or train.

gbrown 8y ago

Don't get me wrong, I bike too. I also have little faith that this sort of system will be implemented effectively and transparently. I also don't think it should be legal in the first place to gather this kind of data without informed consent (no, TOS doesn't count). There's so much going on in industry that an IRB wouldn't touch, and that's where I think we need more regulation. (I also think we need change-lanes-to-pass bills, better bike infrastructure, more regulation on car infotainment systems, and GOOD approaches to punishing and preventing distracted driving).

bryanlarsen 8y ago
The OP's dialog box was: "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." Clicking OK on that dialog box sounds like informed consent to me.
- gbrown 8y ago
  First, it's not clear to me that this is what is being proposed - instead, it sounds like the companies involved get their surveillance tech rolled into other apps like adware. Second, even if enrollment in the program was done more carefully (people shouldn't find out suddenly and in unfamiliar ways about intrusive technology), you'd REALLY want to study this to make sure that the jarring warning doesn't cause even more accidents. I'm not against using technology to improve public safety, but I'm against half-assed ideas which would never hold up under reasonable peer or institutional review without a lot more careful consideration of safety and privacy.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  "CITIZEN, phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement." maybe I'm just one of those freedom-addled american cowboys, but I don't ever want to get a message like that from a device I own. save that for the computers at work or jail.
  - anonymou2 8y ago
    You don't own your phone, unless you run replicant on it. And even then you still have the proprietary modem.
megy 8y ago
I disagree, I think every single car should be constantly tracked, and what the driver is doing tracked as well. 40,000 people die every single year in the US, more than gun deaths. Cars are killing machines.
- whenchamenia 8y ago
  That is terrifying. Why do you want everyone tracked? Deaths are not somehow prevented by surveilance.

tasty_freeze 8y ago

> I say this as a bike commuter who sees phones being used at stoplights every day Why is this a problem? I don't mess with my phone while I'm driving, but if I'm sitting at a light for a minute or two, I'll take a peek if, say, a text message came in while I was moving, just to make sure it isn't something important from my wife or daughter.

rootusrootus 8y ago
Well, when I'm behind someone fiddling with their phone and it takes them an extra five seconds to start moving (and only because I beeped my horn to prompt them to look up), I think it's a problem. We're all trying to get to our destinations safely and quickly. This means traffic has to flow, or we all sit around longer getting more aggravated about it.
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  This is a fair sentiment, but I'm much more concerned about the safety implications than the inconvenience caused by a five second delay. The same delay can come from lots of legitimate sources— weather conditions, road work, delaying passing a cyclist because there isn't room to give the full meter, stopping for a schoolbus, whatever. When we're in a mindset that the smallest delay is intolerable, it becomes harder to be patient in the cases where slowing your vehicle is actually the safer choice (which, of course, is most of them).
- Noumenon72 8y ago
  I feel that this problem is self-correcting, since you will get beeped at every time (reliable negative reinforcement) and no one actually wants to sit at a green light, so there's no selfish incentive involved.
- loeg 8y ago
  Inconvenience isn't good, but it's a distant second fiddle to safety.
rconti 8y ago
I do the same, but please think of the people behind you. If you ever fail to react to traffic in front of you going immediately, you have just wasted several minutes of the lives of everyone behind you, as far back as the backup goes (for example at a traffic light). I'm EXTREMELY diligent, but some folks apparently have no concern for others.

rootusrootus 8y ago

My phone already does that (well, the prompt at least, if not the legal warning). I bet it does little to deter someone who has decided they have some legitimate reason to look at their phone. Effectively it just adds another step so the distraction lasts even longer.

i_am_proteus 8y ago

I'm scared by what I see on my bicycle. I'm terrified by what I see on my motorcycle-- drivers texting at 80 mph. The laws exist, but I have yet to see an effective enforcement mechanism.

fmajid 8y ago
I'm terrified that you are looking at the driver next to you instead of paying attention to the road in front of you, let alone at 80mph.
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  You don't shoulder-check before switching lanes? It's a safety measure, and is taught in most driving/riding programs.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    I shoulder check but I'm not able to clearly make out what the other drivers are doing unless I'm way too close to be making a lane change.
    - genocidicbunny 8y ago
      It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to notice them looking down and slightly to the right, or very hard down. Humans are good at noticing what other people are looking at, so it doesn't take more than a moment to figure out if someone's looking at something either than the road. From there, it's a relatively safe bet if they're not looking at the road, they're looking at this phone. I see this all the time in a car, but maybe Ive trained myself to pay attention to this considering how many drivers use their phones while driving.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      Phones are very easy to spot, because it's a tiny glowing screen in an otherwise dark car.

RaceWon 8y ago

> I say this as a bike commuter who sees phones I' m probably going to get downvoted however: as a person who basically spent their entire adult life getting better at driving, (every single activity I have done since I was 17 was done to improve my driving: visual exercises, concentration exercises, sports, street racing, racing schools, advanced racing schools, advaced slide control training, lapping days, sports psychologist, exercise physiologist, organized open wheel racing and so on and so on... am I any good? I was offered fully funded racing contract, I was once pulled over by the police who inquired how it is possible to drive so well he said "it's like the car has eyes." I have anhiliated laptimes of National race winners and professional racing instructors. And yes, I ride a racing style bicycle--but mainly to improve my balance for driving.) I can guarantee you this as an Expert Driver; if you ride on the street with cars YOU are BEGGING to Be Hit And KILLED, and I know what the laws are--I'm stating my Expert opinion... and I Know I'm not wrong.

fmajid 8y ago

My iPhone does this simply on the basis of being connected to a car's bluetooth. Most likely it's the driver doing this.

stordoff 8y ago

> "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." So track people when they are the passenger, or are on a train? I'm not sure that strikes the right balance.

loeg 8y ago

> I'm perfectly content for a phone to detect via GPS/IMU that it's in a moving vehicle and send up a big angry prompt like "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." This makes sense if you sort of assume all trips are by car by default, but in places with mass transit this is a useless nuisance for people who mostly take the bus or train.