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My horn usage has gone way up. Driving stick in the US you have to pay attention to be in gear at the right time. In the past 10 years I've seen it get exponent

My horn usage has gone way up. Driving stick in the US you have to pay attention to be in gear at the right time. In the past 10 years I've seen it get exponentially worse as people put their heads down coming up to a red light. Laws are written but not enforced. Friends and relatives die from drunk or distracted driving and it's frustrating because even though driving is a privileged and not a right people with multiple DUIs get back behind the wheel. Honestly, texting and driving should have as strict punishments as a DUI and I know that's an unpopular stance.

cobbzilla 7y ago
Agreed. I saw some report that reaction times for distracted driving are actually worse than DUI. On top of that, you can avoid the vast majority of drunk drivers if you stay off the roads at night. Distracted drivers are on the road at all hours.
- xwdv 7y ago
  This isn’t a fair comparison, you need to compare a person texting while driving with a person who is texting while drunk driving.
  - trillic 7y ago
    Hot take: I'd rather share the road with someone completely focused who's slightly above the legal limit, than someone who is sober and distracted.
    - Enginerrrd 7y ago
      >completely focused who's slightly above the legal limit This may not be possible. One of the effects of alcohol on cognition is that it increases distractability while simultaneously making you less aware of it's occurrence which is a compounding issue.
      - dasil003 7y ago
        It’s also not possible to make a completely sober person be at peak focus and attention all the time as they drive.
      - lmilcin 7y ago
        That's right, any amount of alcohol reduces awareness and increases reaction time. I think what the poster meant is that while a person driving under influence might be slightly distracted (there is full spectrum of being under influence) the person fidgeting with a phone is always very distracted. You can't be only slightly distracted when you are not looking at the road but reading or replying to message.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ummonk 7y ago
  The difference is that drunk people don’t stop being drunk when the red light turns green whereas most distracted drivers do stop being distracted.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
    They may stop being distracted at some point, but I can assure you that it's not when the light turns green. Every single day I see many people staring at their phones while hurtling down the highway at 70 mph.
xwdv 7y ago
Driving stick doesn’t mean anything. You can be texting and driving stick at the same time easily. You don’t constantly need your hand on the shifter.
- post_break 7y ago
  You're correct, but if you don't want to be that guy you generally want to notice the light is about to change and get into 1st gear. Vs head down facebooking waiting for the honk to step on the gas.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I dunno I'd prefer to be regularly slightly inconvenienced to having some person on their phone slam into me while they run a red.
- eebynight 7y ago
  You must not actually drive stick then. The only time I can see myself being able to text while driving stick is on the highway and even then I wouldn’t really be comfortable doing so. When I used to drive auto I could literally have my phone in my right hand with my left hand on the wheel at all times if I wanted to...
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >you must not actually drive stick then. The only time I can see myself being able to text while driving stick is on the highway and even then I wouldn’t really be comfortable doing so. He probably just drives something made in the last ~15yr. In a modern vehicle the power band is wide enough that you have about 3 gears that can be used in any given situation and the gear shift is basically a 6-way toggle switch. You could definitely use your phone if you wanted to. I used to eat a bagel on my way to work in stop and go traffic with my gear shift hand and that's in a 25yo vehicle with a really long shifter and such little power you really only have one good gear for a given situation. In a vehicle like that it is much harder to be distracted and drive comfortably.
  - 7y ago
axaxs 7y ago
Probably more unpopular, I think it should have worse punishment than DUI. Or maybe both need to get worse punishment equally? Texting and driving to me is the ultimate sign of vanity. A person is knowingly breaking the law, and putting their own desire for instant communication/social media above the lives of others. As in, 'me posting to instagram is more important than whether you live or die'. I'm hoping most don't feel that way, but their behavior says otherwise...
- mc32 7y ago
  You have a point. At the time they decide to use a device/phone, their faculties are not diminished and yet they decide to do it anyway. Maybe we need one of those corny ‘80s throwback PSAs to shame people into conscientious behavior.
  - cronix 7y ago
    You're assuming they made a conscious decision, as in the thought actually crossed their mind that "this might not be a good idea." I'd wager the thought never crossed their distracted mind. They're chasing dopamine rushes. In fact, I doubt many are making conscious decisions to pick up their phone and look at it. It's automatic at this point. They've programmed themselves. Have you ever watched someone sitting alone lately? It's like this nervous tick happens where they get irritated and uncomfortable if they don't check their phone every 5 minutes. There is no attention span. We've programmed it out.
    - shantly 7y ago
      It's amazing how fast we went from "talking on or looking at your cell-phone in public for any length of time, or frequently, is something only self-important dicks do", to the point that we could use such behavior as universally-understood shorthand in fiction for "this character is a self-important dick", to its being totally normal. I'm pretty sure the gap was bridged in about five years. Crazy. I remain skeptical that the switch from "the Internet exists at some physical locations, you must go to one to use the Internet" to "the Internet exists at all physical locations all of the time" was anywhere near being a net (haha) gain for our collective wellbeing.
technofiend 7y ago
This more than anything is a good example of self-driving cars actually increasing safety in the net even if there will be loss of life from algorithm failures. Self-driving cars can be put in situations they don't understand but they don't lose focus, don't drive angry, etc.
helen___keller 7y ago
> even though driving is a privileged and not a right I would like to agree but in reality the vast majority of the population get a driver's license (and drive on the regular) and you have to fuck up really badly to lose it. For better or for worse, most of our built environment is absolutely dependent on driving so society as a whole is way too lenient on drivers and their statistical externalities. Driving is treated as a revocable right, not as a privilege.
ksaj 7y ago
Where I live, we have a charge called "care and control of a vehicle" which I think should be applied to both drunk and distracted driving. We do have "driving while intoxicated" (which covers alcohol and drugs - controlled, illicit or medical) and "distracted driving" (which covers everything from lighting a cigarette to adjusting your radio, to talking on your phone, to turning around to high-five the passenger in the back seat). I'm not recommending removing those charges. I'm advocating that the charges should be made stiffer by adding "care and control of a vehicle" on top of the dwi or distracted driving charges. That way, there are more points taken off your license, and it gets even more expensive to deal with in court (or jail, as the case may be). The tools are there for us, but we don't use them as effectively as we could.
pedantsamaritan 7y ago
As a passenger, my usage of the phrase "I can help you with your phone if you want; either way, please put it down" has also gone way up

cobbzilla 7y ago

Agreed. I saw some report that reaction times for distracted driving are actually worse than DUI. On top of that, you can avoid the vast majority of drunk drivers if you stay off the roads at night. Distracted drivers are on the road at all hours.

xwdv 7y ago
This isn’t a fair comparison, you need to compare a person texting while driving with a person who is texting while drunk driving.
- trillic 7y ago
  Hot take: I'd rather share the road with someone completely focused who's slightly above the legal limit, than someone who is sober and distracted.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    >completely focused who's slightly above the legal limit This may not be possible. One of the effects of alcohol on cognition is that it increases distractability while simultaneously making you less aware of it's occurrence which is a compounding issue.
    - dasil003 7y ago
      It’s also not possible to make a completely sober person be at peak focus and attention all the time as they drive.
    - lmilcin 7y ago
      That's right, any amount of alcohol reduces awareness and increases reaction time. I think what the poster meant is that while a person driving under influence might be slightly distracted (there is full spectrum of being under influence) the person fidgeting with a phone is always very distracted. You can't be only slightly distracted when you are not looking at the road but reading or replying to message.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ummonk 7y ago
The difference is that drunk people don’t stop being drunk when the red light turns green whereas most distracted drivers do stop being distracted.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  They may stop being distracted at some point, but I can assure you that it's not when the light turns green. Every single day I see many people staring at their phones while hurtling down the highway at 70 mph.

xwdv 7y ago

Driving stick doesn’t mean anything. You can be texting and driving stick at the same time easily. You don’t constantly need your hand on the shifter.

post_break 7y ago
You're correct, but if you don't want to be that guy you generally want to notice the light is about to change and get into 1st gear. Vs head down facebooking waiting for the honk to step on the gas.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I dunno I'd prefer to be regularly slightly inconvenienced to having some person on their phone slam into me while they run a red.
eebynight 7y ago
You must not actually drive stick then. The only time I can see myself being able to text while driving stick is on the highway and even then I wouldn’t really be comfortable doing so. When I used to drive auto I could literally have my phone in my right hand with my left hand on the wheel at all times if I wanted to...
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >you must not actually drive stick then. The only time I can see myself being able to text while driving stick is on the highway and even then I wouldn’t really be comfortable doing so. He probably just drives something made in the last ~15yr. In a modern vehicle the power band is wide enough that you have about 3 gears that can be used in any given situation and the gear shift is basically a 6-way toggle switch. You could definitely use your phone if you wanted to. I used to eat a bagel on my way to work in stop and go traffic with my gear shift hand and that's in a 25yo vehicle with a really long shifter and such little power you really only have one good gear for a given situation. In a vehicle like that it is much harder to be distracted and drive comfortably.
- 7y ago

axaxs 7y ago

Probably more unpopular, I think it should have worse punishment than DUI. Or maybe both need to get worse punishment equally? Texting and driving to me is the ultimate sign of vanity. A person is knowingly breaking the law, and putting their own desire for instant communication/social media above the lives of others. As in, 'me posting to instagram is more important than whether you live or die'. I'm hoping most don't feel that way, but their behavior says otherwise...

mc32 7y ago
You have a point. At the time they decide to use a device/phone, their faculties are not diminished and yet they decide to do it anyway. Maybe we need one of those corny ‘80s throwback PSAs to shame people into conscientious behavior.
- cronix 7y ago
  You're assuming they made a conscious decision, as in the thought actually crossed their mind that "this might not be a good idea." I'd wager the thought never crossed their distracted mind. They're chasing dopamine rushes. In fact, I doubt many are making conscious decisions to pick up their phone and look at it. It's automatic at this point. They've programmed themselves. Have you ever watched someone sitting alone lately? It's like this nervous tick happens where they get irritated and uncomfortable if they don't check their phone every 5 minutes. There is no attention span. We've programmed it out.
  - shantly 7y ago
    It's amazing how fast we went from "talking on or looking at your cell-phone in public for any length of time, or frequently, is something only self-important dicks do", to the point that we could use such behavior as universally-understood shorthand in fiction for "this character is a self-important dick", to its being totally normal. I'm pretty sure the gap was bridged in about five years. Crazy. I remain skeptical that the switch from "the Internet exists at some physical locations, you must go to one to use the Internet" to "the Internet exists at all physical locations all of the time" was anywhere near being a net (haha) gain for our collective wellbeing.

technofiend 7y ago

This more than anything is a good example of self-driving cars actually increasing safety in the net even if there will be loss of life from algorithm failures. Self-driving cars can be put in situations they don't understand but they don't lose focus, don't drive angry, etc.

helen___keller 7y ago

> even though driving is a privileged and not a right I would like to agree but in reality the vast majority of the population get a driver's license (and drive on the regular) and you have to fuck up really badly to lose it. For better or for worse, most of our built environment is absolutely dependent on driving so society as a whole is way too lenient on drivers and their statistical externalities. Driving is treated as a revocable right, not as a privilege.

ksaj 7y ago

Where I live, we have a charge called "care and control of a vehicle" which I think should be applied to both drunk and distracted driving. We do have "driving while intoxicated" (which covers alcohol and drugs - controlled, illicit or medical) and "distracted driving" (which covers everything from lighting a cigarette to adjusting your radio, to talking on your phone, to turning around to high-five the passenger in the back seat). I'm not recommending removing those charges. I'm advocating that the charges should be made stiffer by adding "care and control of a vehicle" on top of the dwi or distracted driving charges. That way, there are more points taken off your license, and it gets even more expensive to deal with in court (or jail, as the case may be). The tools are there for us, but we don't use them as effectively as we could.

pedantsamaritan 7y ago

As a passenger, my usage of the phrase "I can help you with your phone if you want; either way, please put it down" has also gone way up