6 ms·

UK to ban all in-hand mobile phone use while driving in 2022

38 points by pharmakom 5y ago

dazc 5y ago
A sober reminder of why this is too little, too late... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/31/lorry-driver-distracted-phone-jailed-10-years-crash-deaths-tomasz-kroker https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/31/lorry-driver...
- hmrr 5y ago
  Ah yes I remember that. It’s horrible. Every day I see people still doing it though here in London. There is no excuse. Not one. Actually two weeks ago there was a huge Jewsons truck blocking an entire junction while driver was on his phone. The driver in front of me who was blocked confronted him and he told her to fuck off and what was she going to do about it. She used her phone to take a photo of him on his. I hope something is done. Some people are so arrogant and thoughtless.
- krona 5y ago
  The driver was jailed for 10 years so I don't get your point; the behaviour was already illegal since the driver was not paying attention and wasn't in control of his vehicle.
  - docdeek 5y ago
    Not OP but perhaps having a law in place and that law enforced would have made the accident less likely in the first place.
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    We all know making things illegal means no one will ever do them again, obviously /s
  - pixelpoet 5y ago
    [Replying to pre-edit comment before the semicolon] An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (or punishment, in this case- sentencing offenders won't bring anyone back to life).
  - purrcat259 5y ago
    The four who might have still been alive today had it been illegal to use a phone will driving see OP's point
  - dazc 5y ago
    /edit since you've edited your comment/ The law around usage of a phone whilst driving was not so clear cut. A minor UK celebrity famously evaded prosecution by claiming he wasn't using a phone 'as a phone' when he was caught. https://www.ashmanssolicitors.com/blog/have-you-been-caught-driving-whilst-using-a-mobile-phone/ https://www.ashmanssolicitors.com/blog/have-you-been-caught-... Re the case of the lorry driver: There was video footage of him browsing his phone, he killed 4 people. This isn't normally the case which is why many people think it's OK to drive whilst distracted by their phones ('multi-tasking' is the phrase I think they often use?). If laws around usage of mobile phones whilst driving were tightened up and rigorously enforced from the outset then it is less likely such a tragedy would have happened. This was my point. As well as a gentle reminder for anyone who thinks there are never going to be serious consequences of doing similar.
- eptcyka 5y ago
  Do you drive on the roads in the UK? I don't think legislation will fix the culture of not caring enough to recognize speed limit signs. People are constantly distracted or just stupid. Regardless of whether the speed limit is 20 or 30, they all choose to drive at 25. In fact, next to no-one is actually following the 20mph speed limit in most cases. Motorway driving isn't any better, you either do well below 70 or well above it. There's people leaving 100m stretches between them and the next car when there's congestion. Road markings are taken to be mere suggestions. And the road markings themselves are rubbish - how am I supposed to know which lane must I take if the only signs instructing me of that are under the cars in front of me? I wholeheartedly agree that phones shouldn't be used during driving, but to drive safer and more efficiently, the country needs a change in driving culture.
  - GoodbyeMrChips 5y ago
    The UK has amongst the safest roads in the world, however you choose to measure it. There is always room for improvement, but to suggest the UK has a poor driving safety culture is demonstrably false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
    - Beldin 5y ago
      The number of deaths is indeed low. How's the number of traffic-related injuries?
    - brabel 5y ago
      It's true the UK has "safer" streets than other countries, but that doesn't mean it's great. 2.9 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year... That means that if everyone lived in a medium sized town of 100,000 people, each town would have nearly 3 of its inhabitants killed on the roads per year. Over a period of , say, 10 years, you 're fairly likely to know or be related to one of them. It's still pretty terrible, even if other places on this planet have even much worse.
    - dazc 5y ago
      You are correct although this is more a case of other countries being worse rather than us being particularly well-behaved.
- brabel 5y ago
  I am terrified of the day I will also witness this happening, or worse, become a victim. Because I walk a lot , I see drivers everywhere constantly holding their phones on one hand while driving with the other, barely looking forward to watch the road, just like the lorry driver in question, who killed a whole family while scrolling through music on his phone, did. It's a matter of time, people should be banned from driving as soon as can finally get a fucking computer to do it for us. The carnage must stop and I am honestly shocked the number of people dying is not an order of magnitude higher given the behaviour I see from drivers everywhere, even in the richest, most "law-abiding" countries (let alone elsewhere).
RoryH 5y ago
Good!
capableweb 5y ago
> Under current UK laws, drivers are banned from texting or making a phone call (other than in an emergency) while using a handheld device. From 2022, drivers will not be allowed to take photos or videos, scroll through playlists or play games on their phones when driving. Incredible that the lawmakers were stupid enough last time to ban not phone usage in general, but just texting and making a call. And now they are repeating the same mistake by specifying that it's illegal to scroll through playlists or play games? Just ban phone usage nonstop already like other, sane countries. Make an exception for navigational purposes, and hopefully we can have fewer deaths because of distracted driving. Or even better, create a law that outlaws being distracted by anything while driving, requiring drivers to stop if they are distracted.
- OJFord 5y ago
  It's avoiding banning looking at CityMapper, Google Maps, etc. (And perhaps even poking 'next track' button which is not that different to the same on the dashboard's cassette player.) The prose you quoted is just the paper's explanation, I assume the 'all in-hand use' from the title is closer to what will be in the actual bill.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    > I assume the 'all in-hand use' from the title is closer to what will be in the actual bill I sure hope so, but considering the track record, I'm avoiding to assume anything.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  I mean, phones were very very different when the law went into place. I don't think it's quite fair to be totally harsh on the legislators not predicting modern smartphone complexity. If you ban it completely you'd also ban using GPS/Maps/Sat Nav apps.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    > I mean, phones were very very different when the law went into place. I don't know exactly when the previous law came into effect, but I remember the Nokia 3310 (released 2000) had games on it already. > If you ban it completely you'd also ban using GPS/Maps/Sat Nav apps. Yeah, hence I wrote about excepting navigational purposes in my comment.
kerrsclyde 5y ago
Yes, but why can you still smoke whilst driving (providing it is your car not being used for business)? Seems incredible this has not been made illegal too.
- hmrr 5y ago
  Very good point. My mother in law totalled her car when she dropped a cigarette on the floor when she was driving. Fortunately no one else involved.
  - opless 5y ago
    Being distracted whilst driving is literally the definition of "driving without due care and attention", and explicit law doesn't actually make any difference, apart from sentencing.
- koziserek 5y ago
  Or just using ipad mini!
thih9 5y ago
What about touchscreens in the car itself? I’m sure they’re not as much distracting, but they still require more attention than they should.
- cromka 5y ago
  That's too far. Console switches existed long before that and good luck switching something on/off on a 2000's Volvo dashboard without looking at it. The point is to sop people holding phones in their hands or on their laps and spending too more time looking at them than a spit of a second, checking social media etc.
- Nursie 5y ago
  I'd object, to a law outlawing the use of those. Many of them are used to control car functions like climate control etc, and it's never been a particular problem before to allow people to (for instance) change radio station or skip a track on the CD. With the rise of carplay and android auto, they present simplified, low-distraction interfaces.
  - jonathanlydall 5y ago
    My 2019 Honda Jazz doesn't use a touch screen for climate control, but it has a "touch based" interface for it and I way preferred the physical knobs on my previous car. Newer Hondas have switched back to physical knobs so I guess the general sentiment was that touch is not great for climate control. As for changing radio station or tracks. Both my cars I've owned for the last 10 years has steering wheel controls which can do this. I never really need to touch my actual radio. The only time I would ever want to touch my car's or phone's screen is before I start a trip to turn on navigation software or start up Spotify.
  - squiggleblaz 5y ago
    I think the problem here is that a car with physical buttons is safer to use than one that does not have physical buttons. This is because you have to actually look at the screen to know where tap and to determine whether you have effectively pressed. In the olden days, you could simply turn a knob to change the climate control or in an earlier time, there were radio buttons to change to another radio station (hence the name). Now, it seems there's various things I can't do in a modern car without stopping first.
CraigJPerry 5y ago
I ride a motorbike so i get to see more. There isn’t a traffic light or even a street you can drive on in the uk where there isn’t at least one driver playing with a phone or a satnav. And despite all that, road deaths are pretty low. Is this genuinely the next most important thing we could do to get people where they’re going quickly and safely? For my money, I’d focus on reintroducing traffic police in the UK. Ostensibly they’ve never gone away, they still exist. However it’s a skeleton staff only really equipped to deal with road traffic accidents. There aren’t enough to keep things flowing safely and smoothly - which means actively stopping drivers regularly for a word in the ear. Not a ticket, just a word in the first instance.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I also think having a satnav and phone available might even reduce accidents. It will avoid people getting lost, making erratic turns, being distracted and stressed looking for street signs. And with the phone you can call when you're late, and feel less rushed which can also be distracting. But I think the actual handling of the device should be avoided, a fixed mount helps a lot. Looking down is really disorienting. But I'm glad I don't have to drive anymore. I find it too stressful these days. Traffic has become too busy and there's more rules to worry about with variable speed limits depending on the hour etc.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    >a fixed mount helps a lot I'm not sure that holds true. "Participants underestimated by as much as 5 seconds the time they thought they spent looking away from the road when engaging with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay via touch control. https://www.iamroadsmart.com/campaign-pages/end-customer-campaigns/infotainment https://www.iamroadsmart.com/campaign-pages/end-customer-cam...
- hhmc 5y ago
  I checked, and you’re right, road deaths are (relatively speaking) low. Around 1500 per year in the UK. However injuries are incredibly high, >100,000 in the UK. I think if we consider QALYs instead of deaths then the calculus on importance becomes more obvious.
rwmj 5y ago
The current law is confusing and a bit arbitrary since it came in in 2003 before smartphones were a thing. Here's the Crown Prosecution Service guidance if you want to see how complicated it is: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/road-traffic-mobile-phones https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/road-traffic-mobile-ph... Hopefully the new law will tighten things up and clarify.
snthd 5y ago
https://www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/new-report-highlights-human-cost-loophole-law-driving-offences https://www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/new-report-highlight... Would be nice if people were always actually disqualified at 12 points. >While numbers of exceptional hardship pleas are not recorded separately, official figures show that more than 83,000 people escaped an automatic driving ban due to “mitigating circumstances” between 2011 and 2020. >Christopher Gard accumulated eight convictions for using a mobile phone while driving but escaped a ban in June 2015 by arguing that it would cause him to lose his job, highlighting that this would impact negatively on his young son, and his son’s mother. He promised to keep his phone locked in his boot. Six weeks later, he had already broken his promise, and was once again texting behind the wheel when he ploughed into the back of cyclist Lee Martin, killing him. Gard tried to cover up his actions by deleting his texts. He was later jailed for nine years for causing death by dangerous driving.
- Arrath 5y ago
  Is there any guarantee that disqualification actually keeps these people off the streets? (Honestly asking as I'm not familiar with how the law around this works in the UK) I lost a childhood friend to a woman with a long drunk driving record, who naturally disregarded her suspended license and plowed right through us playing street hokey in broad daylight. Since then I've thought penalties should be more punitive when licenses get suspended, like by impounding the car to ensure that the person can't just drive it anyway. But like the loopholes you mention, I haven't found a way to do it that doesn't incur further hardship, like losing employment or usurious impound lot fees accruing in the interim.
  - oliwarner 5y ago
    Of course not. Many people are caught without licences usually because the cars they're driving are uninsured and it's trivial to check, even for civilians. These people get fined, jail time, and points against a pretend license which can act towards a ban (eg no learning). Until we're happy going to a Fifth Element style, license-as-the-key ignition, I don't think we'll achieve what you want. That said, given the drink-driving controls that are being mandated, ID checks seem pretty simple.
simonswords82 5y ago
They can create all the laws they want but if they don’t have police to enforce them it’s a waste of time
p2t2p 5y ago
That’s cute but if I’ve got a touch screen in my car and scroll through Spotify playlist, I’m as distracted as if I would be doing that on my phone if not worse. We need something general about distractions and may be a mandate that requires cars to disable touch screen whilst moving. “Put gear shift lever in park to enable touch screen”

38 points by pharmakom 5y ago

dazc 5y ago

A sober reminder of why this is too little, too late... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/31/lorry-driver-distracted-phone-jailed-10-years-crash-deaths-tomasz-kroker https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/31/lorry-driver...

hmrr 5y ago
Ah yes I remember that. It’s horrible. Every day I see people still doing it though here in London. There is no excuse. Not one. Actually two weeks ago there was a huge Jewsons truck blocking an entire junction while driver was on his phone. The driver in front of me who was blocked confronted him and he told her to fuck off and what was she going to do about it. She used her phone to take a photo of him on his. I hope something is done. Some people are so arrogant and thoughtless.
krona 5y ago
The driver was jailed for 10 years so I don't get your point; the behaviour was already illegal since the driver was not paying attention and wasn't in control of his vehicle.
- docdeek 5y ago
  Not OP but perhaps having a law in place and that law enforced would have made the accident less likely in the first place.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  We all know making things illegal means no one will ever do them again, obviously /s
- pixelpoet 5y ago
  [Replying to pre-edit comment before the semicolon] An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (or punishment, in this case- sentencing offenders won't bring anyone back to life).
- purrcat259 5y ago
  The four who might have still been alive today had it been illegal to use a phone will driving see OP's point
- dazc 5y ago
  /edit since you've edited your comment/ The law around usage of a phone whilst driving was not so clear cut. A minor UK celebrity famously evaded prosecution by claiming he wasn't using a phone 'as a phone' when he was caught. https://www.ashmanssolicitors.com/blog/have-you-been-caught-driving-whilst-using-a-mobile-phone/ https://www.ashmanssolicitors.com/blog/have-you-been-caught-... Re the case of the lorry driver: There was video footage of him browsing his phone, he killed 4 people. This isn't normally the case which is why many people think it's OK to drive whilst distracted by their phones ('multi-tasking' is the phrase I think they often use?). If laws around usage of mobile phones whilst driving were tightened up and rigorously enforced from the outset then it is less likely such a tragedy would have happened. This was my point. As well as a gentle reminder for anyone who thinks there are never going to be serious consequences of doing similar.
eptcyka 5y ago
Do you drive on the roads in the UK? I don't think legislation will fix the culture of not caring enough to recognize speed limit signs. People are constantly distracted or just stupid. Regardless of whether the speed limit is 20 or 30, they all choose to drive at 25. In fact, next to no-one is actually following the 20mph speed limit in most cases. Motorway driving isn't any better, you either do well below 70 or well above it. There's people leaving 100m stretches between them and the next car when there's congestion. Road markings are taken to be mere suggestions. And the road markings themselves are rubbish - how am I supposed to know which lane must I take if the only signs instructing me of that are under the cars in front of me? I wholeheartedly agree that phones shouldn't be used during driving, but to drive safer and more efficiently, the country needs a change in driving culture.
- GoodbyeMrChips 5y ago
  The UK has amongst the safest roads in the world, however you choose to measure it. There is always room for improvement, but to suggest the UK has a poor driving safety culture is demonstrably false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
  - Beldin 5y ago
    The number of deaths is indeed low. How's the number of traffic-related injuries?
  - brabel 5y ago
    It's true the UK has "safer" streets than other countries, but that doesn't mean it's great. 2.9 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year... That means that if everyone lived in a medium sized town of 100,000 people, each town would have nearly 3 of its inhabitants killed on the roads per year. Over a period of , say, 10 years, you 're fairly likely to know or be related to one of them. It's still pretty terrible, even if other places on this planet have even much worse.
  - dazc 5y ago
    You are correct although this is more a case of other countries being worse rather than us being particularly well-behaved.
brabel 5y ago
I am terrified of the day I will also witness this happening, or worse, become a victim. Because I walk a lot , I see drivers everywhere constantly holding their phones on one hand while driving with the other, barely looking forward to watch the road, just like the lorry driver in question, who killed a whole family while scrolling through music on his phone, did. It's a matter of time, people should be banned from driving as soon as can finally get a fucking computer to do it for us. The carnage must stop and I am honestly shocked the number of people dying is not an order of magnitude higher given the behaviour I see from drivers everywhere, even in the richest, most "law-abiding" countries (let alone elsewhere).

RoryH 5y ago

Good!

capableweb 5y ago

> Under current UK laws, drivers are banned from texting or making a phone call (other than in an emergency) while using a handheld device. From 2022, drivers will not be allowed to take photos or videos, scroll through playlists or play games on their phones when driving. Incredible that the lawmakers were stupid enough last time to ban not phone usage in general, but just texting and making a call. And now they are repeating the same mistake by specifying that it's illegal to scroll through playlists or play games? Just ban phone usage nonstop already like other, sane countries. Make an exception for navigational purposes, and hopefully we can have fewer deaths because of distracted driving. Or even better, create a law that outlaws being distracted by anything while driving, requiring drivers to stop if they are distracted.

OJFord 5y ago
It's avoiding banning looking at CityMapper, Google Maps, etc. (And perhaps even poking 'next track' button which is not that different to the same on the dashboard's cassette player.) The prose you quoted is just the paper's explanation, I assume the 'all in-hand use' from the title is closer to what will be in the actual bill.
- capableweb 5y ago
  > I assume the 'all in-hand use' from the title is closer to what will be in the actual bill I sure hope so, but considering the track record, I'm avoiding to assume anything.
breakfastduck 5y ago
I mean, phones were very very different when the law went into place. I don't think it's quite fair to be totally harsh on the legislators not predicting modern smartphone complexity. If you ban it completely you'd also ban using GPS/Maps/Sat Nav apps.
- capableweb 5y ago
  > I mean, phones were very very different when the law went into place. I don't know exactly when the previous law came into effect, but I remember the Nokia 3310 (released 2000) had games on it already. > If you ban it completely you'd also ban using GPS/Maps/Sat Nav apps. Yeah, hence I wrote about excepting navigational purposes in my comment.

kerrsclyde 5y ago

Yes, but why can you still smoke whilst driving (providing it is your car not being used for business)? Seems incredible this has not been made illegal too.

hmrr 5y ago
Very good point. My mother in law totalled her car when she dropped a cigarette on the floor when she was driving. Fortunately no one else involved.
- opless 5y ago
  Being distracted whilst driving is literally the definition of "driving without due care and attention", and explicit law doesn't actually make any difference, apart from sentencing.
koziserek 5y ago
Or just using ipad mini!

thih9 5y ago

What about touchscreens in the car itself? I’m sure they’re not as much distracting, but they still require more attention than they should.

cromka 5y ago
That's too far. Console switches existed long before that and good luck switching something on/off on a 2000's Volvo dashboard without looking at it. The point is to sop people holding phones in their hands or on their laps and spending too more time looking at them than a spit of a second, checking social media etc.
Nursie 5y ago
I'd object, to a law outlawing the use of those. Many of them are used to control car functions like climate control etc, and it's never been a particular problem before to allow people to (for instance) change radio station or skip a track on the CD. With the rise of carplay and android auto, they present simplified, low-distraction interfaces.
- jonathanlydall 5y ago
  My 2019 Honda Jazz doesn't use a touch screen for climate control, but it has a "touch based" interface for it and I way preferred the physical knobs on my previous car. Newer Hondas have switched back to physical knobs so I guess the general sentiment was that touch is not great for climate control. As for changing radio station or tracks. Both my cars I've owned for the last 10 years has steering wheel controls which can do this. I never really need to touch my actual radio. The only time I would ever want to touch my car's or phone's screen is before I start a trip to turn on navigation software or start up Spotify.
- squiggleblaz 5y ago
  I think the problem here is that a car with physical buttons is safer to use than one that does not have physical buttons. This is because you have to actually look at the screen to know where tap and to determine whether you have effectively pressed. In the olden days, you could simply turn a knob to change the climate control or in an earlier time, there were radio buttons to change to another radio station (hence the name). Now, it seems there's various things I can't do in a modern car without stopping first.

CraigJPerry 5y ago

I ride a motorbike so i get to see more. There isn’t a traffic light or even a street you can drive on in the uk where there isn’t at least one driver playing with a phone or a satnav. And despite all that, road deaths are pretty low. Is this genuinely the next most important thing we could do to get people where they’re going quickly and safely? For my money, I’d focus on reintroducing traffic police in the UK. Ostensibly they’ve never gone away, they still exist. However it’s a skeleton staff only really equipped to deal with road traffic accidents. There aren’t enough to keep things flowing safely and smoothly - which means actively stopping drivers regularly for a word in the ear. Not a ticket, just a word in the first instance.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
I also think having a satnav and phone available might even reduce accidents. It will avoid people getting lost, making erratic turns, being distracted and stressed looking for street signs. And with the phone you can call when you're late, and feel less rushed which can also be distracting. But I think the actual handling of the device should be avoided, a fixed mount helps a lot. Looking down is really disorienting. But I'm glad I don't have to drive anymore. I find it too stressful these days. Traffic has become too busy and there's more rules to worry about with variable speed limits depending on the hour etc.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >a fixed mount helps a lot I'm not sure that holds true. "Participants underestimated by as much as 5 seconds the time they thought they spent looking away from the road when engaging with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay via touch control. https://www.iamroadsmart.com/campaign-pages/end-customer-campaigns/infotainment https://www.iamroadsmart.com/campaign-pages/end-customer-cam...
hhmc 5y ago
I checked, and you’re right, road deaths are (relatively speaking) low. Around 1500 per year in the UK. However injuries are incredibly high, >100,000 in the UK. I think if we consider QALYs instead of deaths then the calculus on importance becomes more obvious.

rwmj 5y ago

The current law is confusing and a bit arbitrary since it came in in 2003 before smartphones were a thing. Here's the Crown Prosecution Service guidance if you want to see how complicated it is: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/road-traffic-mobile-phones https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/road-traffic-mobile-ph... Hopefully the new law will tighten things up and clarify.

snthd 5y ago

https://www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/new-report-highlights-human-cost-loophole-law-driving-offences https://www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/new-report-highlight... Would be nice if people were always actually disqualified at 12 points. >While numbers of exceptional hardship pleas are not recorded separately, official figures show that more than 83,000 people escaped an automatic driving ban due to “mitigating circumstances” between 2011 and 2020. >Christopher Gard accumulated eight convictions for using a mobile phone while driving but escaped a ban in June 2015 by arguing that it would cause him to lose his job, highlighting that this would impact negatively on his young son, and his son’s mother. He promised to keep his phone locked in his boot. Six weeks later, he had already broken his promise, and was once again texting behind the wheel when he ploughed into the back of cyclist Lee Martin, killing him. Gard tried to cover up his actions by deleting his texts. He was later jailed for nine years for causing death by dangerous driving.

Arrath 5y ago
Is there any guarantee that disqualification actually keeps these people off the streets? (Honestly asking as I'm not familiar with how the law around this works in the UK) I lost a childhood friend to a woman with a long drunk driving record, who naturally disregarded her suspended license and plowed right through us playing street hokey in broad daylight. Since then I've thought penalties should be more punitive when licenses get suspended, like by impounding the car to ensure that the person can't just drive it anyway. But like the loopholes you mention, I haven't found a way to do it that doesn't incur further hardship, like losing employment or usurious impound lot fees accruing in the interim.
- oliwarner 5y ago
  Of course not. Many people are caught without licences usually because the cars they're driving are uninsured and it's trivial to check, even for civilians. These people get fined, jail time, and points against a pretend license which can act towards a ban (eg no learning). Until we're happy going to a Fifth Element style, license-as-the-key ignition, I don't think we'll achieve what you want. That said, given the drink-driving controls that are being mandated, ID checks seem pretty simple.

simonswords82 5y ago

They can create all the laws they want but if they don’t have police to enforce them it’s a waste of time

p2t2p 5y ago

That’s cute but if I’ve got a touch screen in my car and scroll through Spotify playlist, I’m as distracted as if I would be doing that on my phone if not worse. We need something general about distractions and may be a mandate that requires cars to disable touch screen whilst moving. “Put gear shift lever in park to enable touch screen”