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Texting while driving, that's why. From here I sit on the porch, I can see that about 2/3 of drivers text while driving. I'm convinced that no amount of campa

Texting while driving, that's why. From here I sit on the porch, I can see that about 2/3 of drivers text while driving. I'm convinced that no amount of campaigning, punishment, or scare tactics will suffice to stop it. It is just how driving is done nowadays, and everyone feels they can do it safely (but they can't). There's no going back so if you're on a bike, or a pedestrian, watch out! Driving is sacred in our societies. Whenever a driver kills a pedestrian or a cyclist in my town, there aren't even any charges laid 99% of the time. Personally I think smartphones have been a net loss to society, for this and many other reasons.

taneq 7y ago
And while walking.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  Feels like this has got a lot worse in my experience in the past 2 years, while walking to work in the city it feels like almost half of all people are holding their phone right up to their face. Don't get why it's gotten more common though, phones haven't changed beyond camera updates in years.
  - dota_fanatic 7y ago
    The software has changed as well as society's coupling to that software.
- pasabagi 7y ago
  I think it's pretty legitimate to be distracted while walking around. Being distracted while operating heavy machinery, on the other hand, is kinda bad.
  - empath75 7y ago
    Even if it’s legitimate it could still impact your ability to see a car heading towards you and react to it.
    - pasabagi 7y ago
      Well, yes - but a preponderance of distracted walkers isn't a argument against smartphones. It's an argument against cars. If somebody uses a dangerous device in a public area, they are responsible if they hurt someone. If a certain category of dangerous devices is implicated in the injury of a lot of people who were in public places, then it should be banned. I know cars hold a special place in the mythos, but I think they are a bit like alcohol. They have basically no upsides, and if they were invented today, they would be illegal, except for professional or industrial purposes.
      - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
        I don't own a car, and rely mostly on public transit, but "they have basically no upsides" is just bullshit, sorry. They can transport a group of people, plus significant amounts of load, together, quickly, in relative comfort, at any time, directly from/to a specific place. It's not practical to have acceptable public transit everywhere and to use it for every purpose. > a lot of people ~4k out of a population of 320M is not a lot. That's less than what smoking kills in a week. Or, if you look at it differently: assuming a life expectancy of 80 years, if you inconvenience 320M people by two minutes a day, you have taken away a total of ~5.5k human lifetimes from the population.
        pasabagi 7y ago
        Well, everything has upsides if you don't compare it to the competition. Even if cars were incapable of transporting people, you could say the upside is, they're a good source of scrap. But, compared to the competition (buses, light rail, bicycles), it's hard to see where cars come out ahead. They are more expensive than every other option, they produce poisonous fumes, they take up enormous amounts of space, they only work for able-bodied people, they are loud, dangerous, and absurdly wasteful. I don't think they are worse than smoking as a public health risk. But when you consider the amount of pollution they produce, it's likely comparable. And smokers are taxed - while car drivers are massively subsidized.
  - prepend 7y ago
    Being distracted while waking around heavy machinery is bad as well, but the risk of hurt is less. Being distracted while walking has more risk to self and lesser others. Being distracted while driving has more risk to self and to others.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  Distracted walking is bad, but I'm guessing some people might think you are victim-blaming since this article is about cars driving into humans.
blue_devil 7y ago
There is a solution to any problem - good design. Look up "traffic calming measures". I doubt any driver who values their vehicle would text/use their phone while going through something like this: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1525&bih=760&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ieqZXZuxB4TKwQLkqrCwBg&q=london+chicanes&oq=london+chicanes&gs_l=img.3...4554.4554..4914...0.0..0.100.100.0j1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.IHGPmQFx7mo&ved=0ahUKEwjbmeuX3YflAhUEZVAKHWQVDGYQ4dUDCAc&uact=5#imgrc=_megWAHuQvwcLM https://www.google.com/search?biw=1525&bih=760&tbm=isch&sa=1...:
- mft_ 7y ago
  Doesn't designing road features that require slower speeds and risk car damage penalise all drivers - even those who would never text when driving?
  - dancek 7y ago
    What do you mean by penalising? If a road has a 40km/h speed limit, and then road features designed for 40km/h are added, what's the penalty? The point is to require the driver to focus, which a good driver does anyway.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    Don't speed limits on city streets do the same?
    - abakker 7y ago
      A practical answer is “no”. Speed limits were set when cars really couldn’t safely do any more. But, modern cars have better acceleration and braking and suspension. They remain “comfortably” within their handling capabilities even when 30% over the speed limit. (Estimates are my opinion)
S_A_P 7y ago
Came here to make sure this point was made. The increased death of bicyclists, pedestrians is a pretty easy thing to measure. There are other things that are overlooked or at least not mentioned due to smartphone users driving- 1) increased commute times because distracted drivers don’t follow the flow of traffic well 2) increased likelihood of collisions as traffic starts and stops on highways. I’m certain I see more rear end collisions on the freeway in the last 10 years than the prior 10. 3) Lost productivity at work.
shadowtree 7y ago
Hinting at a massive design miss in modern cars: not embracing the smartphone. If the phone was an essential component to the car, say to be plugged into the center console as the display, the driver could not futz around with it. CarPlay/Android are just workarounds, even Tesla is wrong I think. The car should act as an attachment to the driver’s phone.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  Some people will just buy a second phone just for their car.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  I'm waiting for the app to come out that lets you drive your car using your phone. Then people could play with their phones as much as they want while they drive, and do it safely. The smartphone is the true center of modern life. All other interfaces are just artisanal horse and buggy bullshit.
tkifnn 7y ago
I used regularly watch awful car accidents on /r/watchpeopledie. It made me become a much more defensive safe driver. Then reddit banned the sub and I have slowly become more aggressive. I think exposing people to the brutalities of reality makes them more rational.
- greedo 7y ago
  I think it's been shown to have the opposite effect. Initially you're shocked/dismayed, but after repeated viewings, it becomes normalized in your mind and loses the shock value.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Kind of strange to blame your aggressive driving, which is entirely under your control, on the banning of a subreddit.
  - Noumenon72 7y ago
    You must be high in executive function. For people like me, free will is easily described with incentives and external causes -- "I'm cooking less because I'm busier at work". "I'm not working out as much because my gym closed down and I haven't established a habit of going to the pool". For people like me, we have to change the things that are under our control, like which media we view, to affect the ones that we have difficulty controlling.
  - dTal 7y ago
    There was no suggestion of 'blame', just an observation of a correlation; it was unfair of you to reframe introspection that way. Our behavior is not "entirely under our control" - indeed, there isn't even a well defined 'I' for behaviour to be under the control of. Concepts like 'blame' and 'resposibility' are useful in the context of individual behavior, but misguided when trying to improve systems. That is why the NTSB avoids assigning blame - it would undermine the purpose of what they do.
- andrepd 7y ago
  I did as well. Made a much more cautious person, seeing how (my only) life is fragile. That and fights. Seeing people get killed by a single punch, or pounced upon by murderous madmen, cleared any temptation to be a tough guy. Now if there's ever a situation, in a bar or whatever, I just walk away. Not worth it to die or be maimed for whatever bullshit.
hermitdev 7y ago
Likewise, I see tons of pedestrians doing the same. Ive seen my share of people blindly walk into intersections without looking (and not having the right of way). Hell, I once had to grab the back of someones shirt amd forcibly pull them back so they didn't get creamed by a car because they were so ingrossed in their phone. So, I dont think it's fair to solely put blame on drivers. I do think phones have driven up the rate of incidents, though.
- dwoozle 7y ago
  I did that too. I felt cool for saving someone’s life but then three blocks ahead they were doing it again so I figure I probably only gave them another few weeks on Earth.
  - sgarman 7y ago
    It would be cool if we could live in cities where crossing the street carelessly didn't have to end in death.
- isoskeles 7y ago
  I also did this once for someone who walked into the street. She had the right of way, and she wasn't staring at her cellphone. She started to cross because the crosswalk indicated she was allowed to, but a car was running the red light at the same time. Just wanted to say that not being glued to a phone isn't always enough. Side note, maybe I am a dick, but I refuse to get out of the way of another pedestrian who is staring at their phone. Just a pet peeve of mine, but I really dislike when people move around without being aware of their surroundings, as if it's everyone else's responsibility to make way for them. (Children and people I could hurt just by bumping into them get a pass.)
  - gedy 7y ago
    > I refuse to get out of the way of another pedestrian who is staring at their phone Agreed, and to avoid seeming aggressive I usually stop immediately in front of them, which usually triggers an 'oh! sorry' if they bump into or come close.
ellard 7y ago
I think a simple solution to this is to require everyone to have a minimum of a scooter/moped license first before being able to apply for a driver's license. Maybe we'll inject some more empathy into drivers if they realize how scary it is to be close to a texting driver and have no metal box of armor to protect them.
- dint 7y ago
  Similarly: I am certain that using bicycles as my main means of transportation for the past 3 years has made me a more cautious and methodical driver on the rare occasion that I use a car.
crazygringo 7y ago
According to the article, your theory is simple yet wrong: > Here is what the frustrated safety experts will tell you: Americans are driving more than ever, more than residents of any other country. More of them than ever are living in cities and out in urban sprawl; a growing number of pedestrian fatalities occur on the fringes of cities, where high-volume, high-speed roads exist in close proximity to the places where people live, work, and shop. Speed limits have increased across the country over the past 20 years, despite robust evidence that even slight increases in speed dramatically increase the likelihood of killing pedestrians (car passengers, too – but the increase is not as steep, thanks to improvements in the design of car frames, airbags and seatbelts). American road engineers tend to assume people will speed, and so design roads to accommodate speeding; this, in turn, facilitates more speeding, which soon enough makes higher speed limits feel reasonable. And more Americans than ever are zipping around in SUVs and pickup trucks, which, thanks to their height, weight and shape are between two and three times more likely to kill people they hit. [emphasis added] From other statistics I've seen, the massive increase in SUV's is mentioned as the single largest factor. Indeed, the article directly refutes your theory: > Ask a room full of safety experts about smartphones and you will get a mix of resignation, bemusement and contempt. “I tend not to buy the smartphone distraction stuff,” says Garrick, echoing nearly identical comments from just about everyone I talked to. “To me, it reads as shoving aside actually dealing with the relevant issues.” What particularly bothers him, he says, is how poorly thought out the distraction discourse tends to be. In the UK, Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Austria and Iceland, for example, pedestrian deaths occur at a per capita rate roughly half of America’s, or lower. Are we really to believe that the citizens of these countries are 50% less susceptible than Americans to distraction, by their phones or anything else? ... “All this talk about pedestrian distraction, driver distraction? It’s such a distraction,” says Ben Welle of the World Resource Institute for Sustainable Cities. “It puts all the responsibility on individuals, and none on the environment they operate in.” [emphasis added]
- habosa 7y ago
  > Are we really to believe that the citizens of these countries are 50% less susceptible than Americans to distraction, by their phones or anything else? Given the prevalence of manual cars there, yes I am actually.
paul7986 7y ago
Exactly and thats why Face ID is terrible compared to Touch ID! Added steps/fidgeting with your phone to just get to the point of unlocking it; a unsafe UX step backwards! Robot cars are the answer, yet many innocent non-robot car drivers will perish at the sake of AI car progress. Progress in this instance will be murder!
- yoz-y 7y ago
  > Exactly and thats why Face ID is terrible compared to Touch ID! How would TouchID help in this case? Concerning AI drivers, a lot of innocent non-robot people are dying because of driving right now. I am unconvinced that more people would die. Of course the road ahead is still long.
  - paul7986 7y ago
    When I grab my iPhone 8 in any instance the phone opens instantly. Now if Im a dumb driver texting which is millions and now have Face ID .. i have to grab my phone...look at it and swipe up vs. the one step mentioned; grab it while not looking at it and it's opened. One step without a distraction from the road vs. three steps that make you focus your face/attention more on your phone then the road!
    - yoz-y 7y ago
      iPhone has "driving in the car" detection, afaik it only stops you from receiving texts but maybe they should go further and don't even let you unlock it (you can always dismiss it by saying that you are a passenger). Anyways this is hardly a hardware issue, I think that punishment for texting while driving should be way more severe. Why not do it the high-school way and confiscate the cell phone? You can grab it later at a police station or pay for shipping if you are not a local.
- yardie 7y ago
  If you're behind the wheel there is no reason to be on the phone whatsoever. If it's that important you can pull off to the side and face/touch/swipe away.
prepend 7y ago
I think the only solution is self driving cars.
gruez 7y ago
>I'm convinced that no amount of campaigning, punishment, or scare tactics will suffice to stop it. Really? I bet a $10,000 fine and/or 1 year license suspension would be enough. Making it so it shows up on your driving record (and therefore will increase insurance rates) would also help. It's not like drug addiction where you're physically dependent on it, or drinking and driving where you're "forced" into it because of a decision a few hours ago.
- bob1029 7y ago
  I am 100% behind this. I've previously proposed to HN that texting and driving should be classified as a potential felony because of the extremely fatal consequences of being that distracted. Obviously, I was downvoted by the crowd that believe they are special snowflakes who can text and drive with some arbitrary degree of increased safety relative to all of their peers, and likely also the crowd that believes harsh penalties should never apply because of the historic abuses of these policies in terms of keeping our prisons full. In this case, I don't give a flying shit. If you text and drive and you think it's ok, you shouldn't be on the road. Period. If you can't come to terms with this, maybe you should have your license revoked. If this is still insufficient, perhaps we really do need to put your ass in jail for a while. Are people so psychologically addicted to their electronics that they'd be willing to skirt jail time? Is anyone actually going to have a bad day because you couldn't send a WhatsApp message while you are hurtling down the freeway at 70mph with barely 5 meters margin between you and every other car? Just put the damn phones away while you are driving. Like OP mentions, it's not even a physical addiction or a subsequent consequence. Takes 2 seconds to become compliant no matter your current circumstances or state of mind. Some emergency in your head and you absolutely need to use the device? There's this thing called "pulling over and parking" that I would highly recommend trying out. Believe it or not, you are actually allowed to arbitrarily exit and enter the freeway along its route as desired.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    > Is anyone actually going to have a bad day because you couldn't send a WhatsApp message while you are hurtling down the freeway at 70mph with barely 5 meters margin between you and every other car? Maybe the driver's phone should disable itself when driving?
scarejunba 7y ago
The guys studying this disagree with you. Your hypothesis is addressed in the article.
14 7y ago
I do try and refrain from texting and driving but will admit I am guilty of reading the occasional text while on the road. Call me crazy but I really think the no texting laws may have had some negative side effects. People still text. Just now they have to be even more distracted. They have to put the phone way down on their laps so a cop won't see it. Then constantly looking up and around if there is a cop watching. This was me 8 years ago when the no cell phone driving laws kicked in. Before I would hold my phone up high and texting seemed much easier as I wasn't distracted with hiding it. Of course I learned better, I grew up a little and had kids. Realised texting and driving is so dangerous but don't expect the rest of the population to get that. I don't think we will see a solution until cell phones are advanced enough that they intergrate with the cars a little more like a HUD or something on the windshield coupled with self driving technology.
Glyptodon 7y ago
I think many pedestrians (including boarders, bicyclists, etc.) don't help things at all by also (in some proportion) constantly looking at devices and in many cases also clogging their ears with turned up music and podcasts.
homerhomer 7y ago
Yup texting isn't helping. I don't think that's the whole story. I would guess that the automation of cars, even automatic transmission is making drivers less engaged in driving and less alert because they don't have to be. The extreme version of this is Tesla drivers sleeping in there cars while it drives. One thing I noticed about 5 years ago also was pedestrians not defensively walking across the roads, it's probably nothing new but I noticed there's a lot of people that see the green walk light and then just start walking. Changes probably need to be made the to whole traffic system.
e40 7y ago
I completely agree. I walk an hour a day on busy streets. The shit I've seen. Whew. I assume every driver will try to kill me. I've walked, by my estimate, 25,000 miles since 1995. I've jumped out of the way of cars maybe twice. Many times, I saw they weren't looking and just wouldn't step off the curb. The other rule I have: if I need to use my phone, I move to the side of the sidewalk and stop. I won't walk and use it. 99% of the time, it's in my pocket.

taneq 7y ago

And while walking.

whywhywhywhy 7y ago
Feels like this has got a lot worse in my experience in the past 2 years, while walking to work in the city it feels like almost half of all people are holding their phone right up to their face. Don't get why it's gotten more common though, phones haven't changed beyond camera updates in years.
- dota_fanatic 7y ago
  The software has changed as well as society's coupling to that software.
pasabagi 7y ago
I think it's pretty legitimate to be distracted while walking around. Being distracted while operating heavy machinery, on the other hand, is kinda bad.
- empath75 7y ago
  Even if it’s legitimate it could still impact your ability to see a car heading towards you and react to it.
  - pasabagi 7y ago
    Well, yes - but a preponderance of distracted walkers isn't a argument against smartphones. It's an argument against cars. If somebody uses a dangerous device in a public area, they are responsible if they hurt someone. If a certain category of dangerous devices is implicated in the injury of a lot of people who were in public places, then it should be banned. I know cars hold a special place in the mythos, but I think they are a bit like alcohol. They have basically no upsides, and if they were invented today, they would be illegal, except for professional or industrial purposes.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
      I don't own a car, and rely mostly on public transit, but "they have basically no upsides" is just bullshit, sorry. They can transport a group of people, plus significant amounts of load, together, quickly, in relative comfort, at any time, directly from/to a specific place. It's not practical to have acceptable public transit everywhere and to use it for every purpose. > a lot of people ~4k out of a population of 320M is not a lot. That's less than what smoking kills in a week. Or, if you look at it differently: assuming a life expectancy of 80 years, if you inconvenience 320M people by two minutes a day, you have taken away a total of ~5.5k human lifetimes from the population.
      - pasabagi 7y ago
        Well, everything has upsides if you don't compare it to the competition. Even if cars were incapable of transporting people, you could say the upside is, they're a good source of scrap. But, compared to the competition (buses, light rail, bicycles), it's hard to see where cars come out ahead. They are more expensive than every other option, they produce poisonous fumes, they take up enormous amounts of space, they only work for able-bodied people, they are loud, dangerous, and absurdly wasteful. I don't think they are worse than smoking as a public health risk. But when you consider the amount of pollution they produce, it's likely comparable. And smokers are taxed - while car drivers are massively subsidized.
- prepend 7y ago
  Being distracted while waking around heavy machinery is bad as well, but the risk of hurt is less. Being distracted while walking has more risk to self and lesser others. Being distracted while driving has more risk to self and to others.
RandomBacon 7y ago
Distracted walking is bad, but I'm guessing some people might think you are victim-blaming since this article is about cars driving into humans.

blue_devil 7y ago

There is a solution to any problem - good design. Look up "traffic calming measures". I doubt any driver who values their vehicle would text/use their phone while going through something like this: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1525&bih=760&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ieqZXZuxB4TKwQLkqrCwBg&q=london+chicanes&oq=london+chicanes&gs_l=img.3...4554.4554..4914...0.0..0.100.100.0j1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.IHGPmQFx7mo&ved=0ahUKEwjbmeuX3YflAhUEZVAKHWQVDGYQ4dUDCAc&uact=5#imgrc=_megWAHuQvwcLM https://www.google.com/search?biw=1525&bih=760&tbm=isch&sa=1...:

mft_ 7y ago
Doesn't designing road features that require slower speeds and risk car damage penalise all drivers - even those who would never text when driving?
- dancek 7y ago
  What do you mean by penalising? If a road has a 40km/h speed limit, and then road features designed for 40km/h are added, what's the penalty? The point is to require the driver to focus, which a good driver does anyway.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Don't speed limits on city streets do the same?
  - abakker 7y ago
    A practical answer is “no”. Speed limits were set when cars really couldn’t safely do any more. But, modern cars have better acceleration and braking and suspension. They remain “comfortably” within their handling capabilities even when 30% over the speed limit. (Estimates are my opinion)

S_A_P 7y ago

Came here to make sure this point was made. The increased death of bicyclists, pedestrians is a pretty easy thing to measure. There are other things that are overlooked or at least not mentioned due to smartphone users driving- 1) increased commute times because distracted drivers don’t follow the flow of traffic well 2) increased likelihood of collisions as traffic starts and stops on highways. I’m certain I see more rear end collisions on the freeway in the last 10 years than the prior 10. 3) Lost productivity at work.

shadowtree 7y ago

Hinting at a massive design miss in modern cars: not embracing the smartphone. If the phone was an essential component to the car, say to be plugged into the center console as the display, the driver could not futz around with it. CarPlay/Android are just workarounds, even Tesla is wrong I think. The car should act as an attachment to the driver’s phone.

RandomBacon 7y ago
Some people will just buy a second phone just for their car.
gerbilly 7y ago
I'm waiting for the app to come out that lets you drive your car using your phone. Then people could play with their phones as much as they want while they drive, and do it safely. The smartphone is the true center of modern life. All other interfaces are just artisanal horse and buggy bullshit.

tkifnn 7y ago

I used regularly watch awful car accidents on /r/watchpeopledie. It made me become a much more defensive safe driver. Then reddit banned the sub and I have slowly become more aggressive. I think exposing people to the brutalities of reality makes them more rational.

greedo 7y ago
I think it's been shown to have the opposite effect. Initially you're shocked/dismayed, but after repeated viewings, it becomes normalized in your mind and loses the shock value.
CydeWeys 7y ago
Kind of strange to blame your aggressive driving, which is entirely under your control, on the banning of a subreddit.
- Noumenon72 7y ago
  You must be high in executive function. For people like me, free will is easily described with incentives and external causes -- "I'm cooking less because I'm busier at work". "I'm not working out as much because my gym closed down and I haven't established a habit of going to the pool". For people like me, we have to change the things that are under our control, like which media we view, to affect the ones that we have difficulty controlling.
- dTal 7y ago
  There was no suggestion of 'blame', just an observation of a correlation; it was unfair of you to reframe introspection that way. Our behavior is not "entirely under our control" - indeed, there isn't even a well defined 'I' for behaviour to be under the control of. Concepts like 'blame' and 'resposibility' are useful in the context of individual behavior, but misguided when trying to improve systems. That is why the NTSB avoids assigning blame - it would undermine the purpose of what they do.
andrepd 7y ago
I did as well. Made a much more cautious person, seeing how (my only) life is fragile. That and fights. Seeing people get killed by a single punch, or pounced upon by murderous madmen, cleared any temptation to be a tough guy. Now if there's ever a situation, in a bar or whatever, I just walk away. Not worth it to die or be maimed for whatever bullshit.

hermitdev 7y ago

Likewise, I see tons of pedestrians doing the same. Ive seen my share of people blindly walk into intersections without looking (and not having the right of way). Hell, I once had to grab the back of someones shirt amd forcibly pull them back so they didn't get creamed by a car because they were so ingrossed in their phone. So, I dont think it's fair to solely put blame on drivers. I do think phones have driven up the rate of incidents, though.

dwoozle 7y ago
I did that too. I felt cool for saving someone’s life but then three blocks ahead they were doing it again so I figure I probably only gave them another few weeks on Earth.
- sgarman 7y ago
  It would be cool if we could live in cities where crossing the street carelessly didn't have to end in death.
isoskeles 7y ago
I also did this once for someone who walked into the street. She had the right of way, and she wasn't staring at her cellphone. She started to cross because the crosswalk indicated she was allowed to, but a car was running the red light at the same time. Just wanted to say that not being glued to a phone isn't always enough. Side note, maybe I am a dick, but I refuse to get out of the way of another pedestrian who is staring at their phone. Just a pet peeve of mine, but I really dislike when people move around without being aware of their surroundings, as if it's everyone else's responsibility to make way for them. (Children and people I could hurt just by bumping into them get a pass.)
- gedy 7y ago
  > I refuse to get out of the way of another pedestrian who is staring at their phone Agreed, and to avoid seeming aggressive I usually stop immediately in front of them, which usually triggers an 'oh! sorry' if they bump into or come close.

ellard 7y ago

I think a simple solution to this is to require everyone to have a minimum of a scooter/moped license first before being able to apply for a driver's license. Maybe we'll inject some more empathy into drivers if they realize how scary it is to be close to a texting driver and have no metal box of armor to protect them.

dint 7y ago
Similarly: I am certain that using bicycles as my main means of transportation for the past 3 years has made me a more cautious and methodical driver on the rare occasion that I use a car.

crazygringo 7y ago

According to the article, your theory is simple yet wrong: > Here is what the frustrated safety experts will tell you: Americans are driving more than ever, more than residents of any other country. More of them than ever are living in cities and out in urban sprawl; a growing number of pedestrian fatalities occur on the fringes of cities, where high-volume, high-speed roads exist in close proximity to the places where people live, work, and shop. Speed limits have increased across the country over the past 20 years, despite robust evidence that even slight increases in speed dramatically increase the likelihood of killing pedestrians (car passengers, too – but the increase is not as steep, thanks to improvements in the design of car frames, airbags and seatbelts). American road engineers tend to assume people will speed, and so design roads to accommodate speeding; this, in turn, facilitates more speeding, which soon enough makes higher speed limits feel reasonable. And more Americans than ever are zipping around in SUVs and pickup trucks, which, thanks to their height, weight and shape are between two and three times more likely to kill people they hit. [emphasis added] From other statistics I've seen, the massive increase in SUV's is mentioned as the single largest factor. Indeed, the article directly refutes your theory: > Ask a room full of safety experts about smartphones and you will get a mix of resignation, bemusement and contempt. “I tend not to buy the smartphone distraction stuff,” says Garrick, echoing nearly identical comments from just about everyone I talked to. “To me, it reads as shoving aside actually dealing with the relevant issues.” What particularly bothers him, he says, is how poorly thought out the distraction discourse tends to be. In the UK, Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Austria and Iceland, for example, pedestrian deaths occur at a per capita rate roughly half of America’s, or lower. Are we really to believe that the citizens of these countries are 50% less susceptible than Americans to distraction, by their phones or anything else? ... “All this talk about pedestrian distraction, driver distraction? It’s such a distraction,” says Ben Welle of the World Resource Institute for Sustainable Cities. “It puts all the responsibility on individuals, and none on the environment they operate in.” [emphasis added]

habosa 7y ago
> Are we really to believe that the citizens of these countries are 50% less susceptible than Americans to distraction, by their phones or anything else? Given the prevalence of manual cars there, yes I am actually.

paul7986 7y ago

Exactly and thats why Face ID is terrible compared to Touch ID! Added steps/fidgeting with your phone to just get to the point of unlocking it; a unsafe UX step backwards! Robot cars are the answer, yet many innocent non-robot car drivers will perish at the sake of AI car progress. Progress in this instance will be murder!

yoz-y 7y ago
> Exactly and thats why Face ID is terrible compared to Touch ID! How would TouchID help in this case? Concerning AI drivers, a lot of innocent non-robot people are dying because of driving right now. I am unconvinced that more people would die. Of course the road ahead is still long.
- paul7986 7y ago
  When I grab my iPhone 8 in any instance the phone opens instantly. Now if Im a dumb driver texting which is millions and now have Face ID .. i have to grab my phone...look at it and swipe up vs. the one step mentioned; grab it while not looking at it and it's opened. One step without a distraction from the road vs. three steps that make you focus your face/attention more on your phone then the road!
  - yoz-y 7y ago
    iPhone has "driving in the car" detection, afaik it only stops you from receiving texts but maybe they should go further and don't even let you unlock it (you can always dismiss it by saying that you are a passenger). Anyways this is hardly a hardware issue, I think that punishment for texting while driving should be way more severe. Why not do it the high-school way and confiscate the cell phone? You can grab it later at a police station or pay for shipping if you are not a local.
yardie 7y ago
If you're behind the wheel there is no reason to be on the phone whatsoever. If it's that important you can pull off to the side and face/touch/swipe away.

prepend 7y ago

I think the only solution is self driving cars.

gruez 7y ago

>I'm convinced that no amount of campaigning, punishment, or scare tactics will suffice to stop it. Really? I bet a $10,000 fine and/or 1 year license suspension would be enough. Making it so it shows up on your driving record (and therefore will increase insurance rates) would also help. It's not like drug addiction where you're physically dependent on it, or drinking and driving where you're "forced" into it because of a decision a few hours ago.

bob1029 7y ago
I am 100% behind this. I've previously proposed to HN that texting and driving should be classified as a potential felony because of the extremely fatal consequences of being that distracted. Obviously, I was downvoted by the crowd that believe they are special snowflakes who can text and drive with some arbitrary degree of increased safety relative to all of their peers, and likely also the crowd that believes harsh penalties should never apply because of the historic abuses of these policies in terms of keeping our prisons full. In this case, I don't give a flying shit. If you text and drive and you think it's ok, you shouldn't be on the road. Period. If you can't come to terms with this, maybe you should have your license revoked. If this is still insufficient, perhaps we really do need to put your ass in jail for a while. Are people so psychologically addicted to their electronics that they'd be willing to skirt jail time? Is anyone actually going to have a bad day because you couldn't send a WhatsApp message while you are hurtling down the freeway at 70mph with barely 5 meters margin between you and every other car? Just put the damn phones away while you are driving. Like OP mentions, it's not even a physical addiction or a subsequent consequence. Takes 2 seconds to become compliant no matter your current circumstances or state of mind. Some emergency in your head and you absolutely need to use the device? There's this thing called "pulling over and parking" that I would highly recommend trying out. Believe it or not, you are actually allowed to arbitrarily exit and enter the freeway along its route as desired.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  > Is anyone actually going to have a bad day because you couldn't send a WhatsApp message while you are hurtling down the freeway at 70mph with barely 5 meters margin between you and every other car? Maybe the driver's phone should disable itself when driving?

scarejunba 7y ago

The guys studying this disagree with you. Your hypothesis is addressed in the article.

14 7y ago

I do try and refrain from texting and driving but will admit I am guilty of reading the occasional text while on the road. Call me crazy but I really think the no texting laws may have had some negative side effects. People still text. Just now they have to be even more distracted. They have to put the phone way down on their laps so a cop won't see it. Then constantly looking up and around if there is a cop watching. This was me 8 years ago when the no cell phone driving laws kicked in. Before I would hold my phone up high and texting seemed much easier as I wasn't distracted with hiding it. Of course I learned better, I grew up a little and had kids. Realised texting and driving is so dangerous but don't expect the rest of the population to get that. I don't think we will see a solution until cell phones are advanced enough that they intergrate with the cars a little more like a HUD or something on the windshield coupled with self driving technology.

Glyptodon 7y ago

I think many pedestrians (including boarders, bicyclists, etc.) don't help things at all by also (in some proportion) constantly looking at devices and in many cases also clogging their ears with turned up music and podcasts.

homerhomer 7y ago

Yup texting isn't helping. I don't think that's the whole story. I would guess that the automation of cars, even automatic transmission is making drivers less engaged in driving and less alert because they don't have to be. The extreme version of this is Tesla drivers sleeping in there cars while it drives. One thing I noticed about 5 years ago also was pedestrians not defensively walking across the roads, it's probably nothing new but I noticed there's a lot of people that see the green walk light and then just start walking. Changes probably need to be made the to whole traffic system.

e40 7y ago

I completely agree. I walk an hour a day on busy streets. The shit I've seen. Whew. I assume every driver will try to kill me. I've walked, by my estimate, 25,000 miles since 1995. I've jumped out of the way of cars maybe twice. Many times, I saw they weren't looking and just wouldn't step off the curb. The other rule I have: if I need to use my phone, I move to the side of the sidewalk and stop. I won't walk and use it. 99% of the time, it's in my pocket.