7 ms·

American drivers even more distracted by phones. Pedestrian deaths are soaring

43 points by neallindsay 3y ago

neallindsay 3y ago
It seems like CarPlay an Android Auto should work against this trend. Maybe cars with those features aren't entering the pool fast enough to overcome how much our attention on our phones is growing?
- unnamed76ri 3y ago
  Except when CarPlay(can’t speak to Android) doesn't work as intended, requiring you to still pick up your phone after you tried to accomplish something on CarPlay. I’m on the road about 3,000 miles/mo and CarPlay not functioning properly happens so often that I don’t even really notice anymore how often I have to pick up my phone.
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    The correct thing to do in that case is to stop before picking up your phone and if it happens to much stop using it altogether and switch to a more reliable system.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      And not driving at all for the entire day if you slept poorly the night before. And pulling over into a parking lot before attending to your toddler’s question. Follow at a safe distance. Slow down in rain. Completely stop at stop signs. Strictly follow speed limits in residential areas. And a thousand other things that unreliable humans aren’t going to do 100% of the time, but if done would improve safety.
    - unnamed76ri 3y ago
      What system is available for iPhone that is more reliable than CarPlay?
- prmoustache 3y ago
  Are you pretending people can't be distracted by choosing which song on spotify they want on android auto or car play? distracted != tapping on your phone Having a handless call in your car arguing about what to buy at groceries in your return trip from work with your significant other can be a dangerous distraction. Sure your eyes may be steered towards the road but your focus might be somewhere else and make you miss important stuff. Or telling the kids at the back to shut up and stop fighting. I wish people would be more aware of that and wouldn't think they can just drive their car as if it was an extension to their living room.
  - neallindsay 3y ago
    No, of course you can be distracted operating the infotainment systems in your car, but directly manipulating your phone is much worse.
- bouncing 3y ago
  I could see people still being distracted scrolling through podcasts.
  - P_I_Staker 3y ago
    And for some reason voice commands for podcasts have never been figured out. "Play a different episode" "Sorry, I have no idea how to do that" Them: Be scared. AI is really smart and is going to take your job. In fairness, I think there's reasons they're intentionally making it different to select what you want to play... but WTF is up with that, too.
    - bouncing 3y ago
      My favorite is, some time around last summer, whenever I told Google to play the latest episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, it invariably plays some random unrelated (not even a similar name) music on Spotify.
      - tzs 3y ago
        I have no idea if this would work with Google, but I've noticed with Alexa it seems less likely to play a song when I ask for a non-song if I tell it to "listen" to the non-song rather than to "play" the non-song.
  - JKCalhoun 3y ago
    As the user replying to you said, there are voice commands. But I get what you are saying — not everyone knows about or trusts the fidelity of the voice software. I wonder though if Apple and Android could remove non-voice functionality from their platforms thereby forcing users to use voice to navigate certain features like song selection. Or perhaps changing songs mechanically can only be done when the velocity of the vehicle is zero. I suspect people will be pissed off about those changes, but I think if I were CEO and had the authority, I would sleep better at night knowing I am doing everything to try to curtail pedestrian deaths because of my product.
- Amezarak 3y ago
  People are making snaps (I see ZILLIONS of stories made by car drivers), scrolling through TikTok, watching YouTube, sending texts, not just making calls. There is a very simple technological solution to this - disable screens on phones in motion faster than xmph - but people are violently against this minor inconvenience for passengers and mass transport commuters for the same reason drivers can't put their phone down, so this problem will likely continue to get worse, especially as the younger generation becomes drivers.
  - ejb999 3y ago
    I am more or less in favor of this - but how do you solve for the problem that not everyone in the car is actually driving and may not want to be prevented from using their phone when riding as a passenger? If we can solve that one, it sounds like a no-brainer to me.
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      I don't think you can in an intelligent way. One simple solution would be to only disable the screen if the phone is connected to car Bluetooth - but this would just result in most phone addicts not connecting their phone to the car. That's why people are against it - the idea of passengers returning to the pre-smartphone era while traveling seems to be considered by most people totally outrageous and and unacceptable price to pay for lowering the accident rate, which has climbed almost solely to due smartphones.
      - bluefirebrand 3y ago
        > most people totally outrageous and and unacceptable What's totally outrageous and unacceptable is the idea that my phone can tell me when I'm allowed to use it or not, based on arbitrary rules set up by tech clowns who are not in my current situation and do not know why I might need it. It's frankly asinine to suggest I should not be able to look up a map of a city while riding a bus because someone else might be texting and driving. Most people would find this outrageous because it is.
      - 3y ago
- polski-g 3y ago
  Will CarPlay read Twitter to me?
- Angostura 3y ago
  As a Carplay user I plead guilty to having been distracted by it in the past while driving, though I think it generally does a good job of it.
paulcole 3y ago
I wouldn’t expect much to change. We love our cars and we love our phones. The number of pedestrian deaths we’re willing to tolerate is going to be much higher than anyone is willing to admit. You can handwring all you want about how that’s not true but just look around.
- trollbridge 3y ago
  Ultimately, cars and pedestrians need to be kept apart. Cars belong on a mode like a controlled access highway. Pedestrians belong basically everywhere else.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    Right. Great to say, but in the US nobody really gives a shit. They’ll say they do but their actions tell the truth.
fusslo 3y ago
I bought a new car this year. It has HUGE blindspots behind the pillars (it's an SUV). They're placed in line with the crosswalk when I'm at a red light. So I have to bob my head around if I want to see anyone about to cross the mirrors FOV also are extremely limited! My last car was a 1998 volvo. It had side mirrors that were half convex to give you a wider FOV. I can't believe how much better it is than my 2024 SUV! I can't understand how cars have any blindspots in 2024. Surely we have the ability to design better mirrors, more cameras, smaller pillars..
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  Return the car and buy one without those defects?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bonton89 3y ago
    Pretty sure crash test requirements are the cause of a lot of the shrinking sight lines in modern cars so any newer car is going to have these kinds of problems to some degree.
    - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
      Those crash test requirements should take into account what you’re crashing into :) it’s all the protection for the car occupants and none for those in the real word.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Pillar mounted airbags are one reason pillars got so much wider in the mid-2000s.
  - wyldfire 3y ago
    Those are on the B-pillars, near the driver/passenger heads - but they don't put em on the A-pillars, too, do they?
ajuc 3y ago
If smartphones were the root cause - it wouldn't diverge between USA and Europe. The insanity of driving trucks instead of compact cars in cities is a big factor.
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  Being hit by 1 ton of metal vs. being hit by 3 tons of metal still sounds rather painful.
  - boredpudding 3y ago
    You have more visibility in a smaller car. So the smaller car has a lower chance of hitting you.
  - wanderingstan 3y ago
    Not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but the research is clear that trucks (and other high front end vehicles) are more likely to kill pedestrians: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-vertical-front-ends-pose-greater-risk-to-pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v... > Whatever their nose shape, pickups, SUVs and vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches are about 45 percent more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than cars and other vehicles with a hood height of 30 inches or less and a sloping profile, an IIHS study of nearly 18,000 pedestrian crashes found.
    - bonton89 3y ago
      Trucks have turned into real monsters. Others on here have mentioned that legislation intended to improve fuel economy had some sort of yearly increasing weight category that was suppose to reduce the amount of large vehicles. But manufacturers all gamed it by just increasing the weight and size vehicles to stay above the line.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Sure. Pedestrian protection on trucks, especially US trucks / SUVs is much worse compared to more compact designs. As is visibility forbthe driver. Combined, this is bad news for pedestrians and cyclists. Add distractions by phones, and it is a potential desaster.
DannyBee 3y ago
Only 15% of pedestrian hit by car fatalities are prosecuted. Of those, the vast majority were DUI as well. So 85% if the time, there are no consequences for killing a pedestrian with your car. If you are sober, it's like 95%. Even when they do prosecute, juries tend to acquit on major charges. They put themselves in the shoes in the driver instead of the victim.
- c-linkage 3y ago
  My feeling is that, in the US, automobile regulations are derived from horse and carriage regulations. When the horse was pulling the cart, it could get spooked and run off, killing or injuring pedestrians. Even though the driver nominally has control of the horse, the horse is an independent entity. This limited the liability of the driver. For example, if the horse ran off and killed someone, as long as the driver stuck around to explain, they wouldn't suffer very much in terms of consequences. It seems today that automobiles, although not an independent entity, still get the same kind of protections as a horse does. That's why and automobile driver who kills a pedestrian in the street can basically get off scot-free, even though the driver has full control over the automobile at the time.
  - salawat 3y ago
    And with self-driving we're moving back toward that lessened liability because who knows how the damn thing works.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  As the saying goes: If you want to murder someone and maximize the chance you get away with it, hit them with your car. The US criminal justice system is ridiculously permissive on car accidents even when people die.
TomMasz 3y ago
This is the major reason I sold my motorcycle this past summer. It's bad enough that drivers have a hard time seeing motorcycles, multiple in-car distractions just make it worse. It was fun while it lasted. I don't ride my bicycle on the roads for the same reason.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I'm saddened when I see people insulate themselves from life's pleasures. I don't wish for this to come across in a way that makes you feel defensive — it's your life to live as you choose. I have friends that seem to have settled into a lifestyle that steers clear of dangers and I have watched as they have lived, from my point of view, very insular lives lacking that rare excitement that the world has to offer.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Every motorcycle owner I've known has been struck by others or had very serious close calls, except one who didn't have it very long. Of those struck two of the five nearly died, one is a quadriplegic. Riding motorcycles in urban areas is betting your life on other people's awareness.
    - JKCalhoun 3y ago
      I think I only know one motorcycle owner that was seriously injured (on a scooter, in college). I've owned a motorcycle more years than not since I was 12 years old. For some stretches of that time the motorcycle was the only motorized transportation I could afford and I relied on it (even in the winter on icy streets) to get to and from work and college. And I've dropped motorcycles a few times, slammed into the back of a bus once (icy), but otherwise have been okay. I'm older now and less desperate and so can afford to take the motorcycle out only on joy rides where I can pick the weather and the destination (out of the urban areas). And not to stereotype bikers too much, but I might add that I have never owned a sport/racing bike. I am more like the gentleman motorcyclist of an earlier era, ha ha. Obviously the above has made riding much safer. I don't think I could completely give up riding though until I become physically unable to. I don't offer this to refute your experience but rather to complement your comment with an example of a rider (turning 60 this year) that has not been seriously injured and has enjoyed the "sport".
LucasBrandt 3y ago
In 2023 I moved into an apartment across from a school in Chicago. The room I work in looks over the street. It's shocking how many drivers are looking at their phone as they approach a crosswalk where children are actively crossing to go to school! It's worse in the morning: parents drop off their own child and they just pick the phone right up, I guess. Other kids be damned.
- drewbug01 3y ago
  My living room backs up to a T-intersection in the alley. I also live next door to a school. Every. Single. Day. I see parents on their phone blowing through the stop signs in the alley at that intersection. During school drop-off! While there are kids and parents walking in that alley to get to the school! It is utter madness.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    No enforcement, no consequences, so nobody is going to change.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
Unpopular opinion: pedestrians need to be MORE aware crossing streets. Stop jay walking and assuming people see you and will stop. Same with bicyclists. You may have the right of way but it doesn't matter when your critically injured or worse: dead.
- stby 3y ago
  I don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all, but it's still just victim blaming. People are run over on sidewalks, cyclists on cycling paths or just standing at red lights. There's basically only one type of road user that is a danger to anyone else [0], the focus should be to make drivers less dangerous and not to make everyone else even more aware. Where I live people already wear high-viz clothing when riding a bike or even just going for a walk, but still get run over. [0] https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/collision-matrix-2019.pdf https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/collisio...
  - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
    Story time, I had to dive bomb out of the way of a car that lost it brakes and had ran onto the sidewalk. I am alive today because I keep my head up and pay attention to the world around me. It's not victim blaming to be aware of one's surroundings and act accordingly. Too many people are passively going through their day and lack complete situational awareness. Wake up and pay attention when there are 2.5 ton steel death machines around and no I'm not going to click your link.
    - stby 3y ago
      Story time. I find myself to be pushing a stroller around a lot these days, and the number of times where I have to wait behind some obstacles to make place for another stroller, kids, someone in a wheelchair, a blind person, old people with walkers, is much higher than I thought it would be when I was just my agile, young self. I'm sure they'd all love to dive bomb away from cars that are running into them.
xnx 3y ago
This will get worse until self driving cars are common. Collectively we value using our phones and driver safety much more than pedestrian lives.
- alamortsubite 3y ago
  Self-driving could be one way to fix the problem at some hand-wavy time in the future. Right now, however, reducing the number of cars in cities, slowing them down, making alternatives to driving more attractive, improving driver education and awareness, and changing the concept of car safety to include people outside the vehicle are all options available to us. Unlike automated driving, these address other problems our society faces, too, like obesity, insularity, pollution, and climate change.
  - xnx 3y ago
    That would be great, but history has shown doing those things to be less realistic. I'm in Phoenix and Waymo is all over and driving safely. We need this everywhere ASAP.
    - alamortsubite 3y ago
      History hasn't shown that at all. In many places, these changes are already happening, and fast. Meanwhile, self-driving cars are a relative pipe dream and likely to cause even bigger problems than we have now, if and when they ever materialize.
johnea 3y ago
> The United States is increasingly an outlier when it comes to... ...any form of industry regulation. Don't expect this to improve. The US is firmly entrenched in 1950s arrested development. WRT pedestrian deaths, pedestrian cell phone usage is also culpable, but cell phone use behind the wheel, especially at freeway speeds, is straight up criminal negligence. But everyone knows: "driving is such a distraction from playing w/ the phone"...

43 points by neallindsay 3y ago

It seems like CarPlay an Android Auto should work against this trend. Maybe cars with those features aren't entering the pool fast enough to overcome how much our attention on our phones is growing?

unnamed76ri 3y ago
Except when CarPlay(can’t speak to Android) doesn't work as intended, requiring you to still pick up your phone after you tried to accomplish something on CarPlay. I’m on the road about 3,000 miles/mo and CarPlay not functioning properly happens so often that I don’t even really notice anymore how often I have to pick up my phone.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  The correct thing to do in that case is to stop before picking up your phone and if it happens to much stop using it altogether and switch to a more reliable system.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    And not driving at all for the entire day if you slept poorly the night before. And pulling over into a parking lot before attending to your toddler’s question. Follow at a safe distance. Slow down in rain. Completely stop at stop signs. Strictly follow speed limits in residential areas. And a thousand other things that unreliable humans aren’t going to do 100% of the time, but if done would improve safety.
  - unnamed76ri 3y ago
    What system is available for iPhone that is more reliable than CarPlay?
prmoustache 3y ago
Are you pretending people can't be distracted by choosing which song on spotify they want on android auto or car play? distracted != tapping on your phone Having a handless call in your car arguing about what to buy at groceries in your return trip from work with your significant other can be a dangerous distraction. Sure your eyes may be steered towards the road but your focus might be somewhere else and make you miss important stuff. Or telling the kids at the back to shut up and stop fighting. I wish people would be more aware of that and wouldn't think they can just drive their car as if it was an extension to their living room.
- neallindsay 3y ago
  No, of course you can be distracted operating the infotainment systems in your car, but directly manipulating your phone is much worse.
bouncing 3y ago
I could see people still being distracted scrolling through podcasts.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  And for some reason voice commands for podcasts have never been figured out. "Play a different episode" "Sorry, I have no idea how to do that" Them: Be scared. AI is really smart and is going to take your job. In fairness, I think there's reasons they're intentionally making it different to select what you want to play... but WTF is up with that, too.
  - bouncing 3y ago
    My favorite is, some time around last summer, whenever I told Google to play the latest episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, it invariably plays some random unrelated (not even a similar name) music on Spotify.
    - tzs 3y ago
      I have no idea if this would work with Google, but I've noticed with Alexa it seems less likely to play a song when I ask for a non-song if I tell it to "listen" to the non-song rather than to "play" the non-song.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  As the user replying to you said, there are voice commands. But I get what you are saying — not everyone knows about or trusts the fidelity of the voice software. I wonder though if Apple and Android could remove non-voice functionality from their platforms thereby forcing users to use voice to navigate certain features like song selection. Or perhaps changing songs mechanically can only be done when the velocity of the vehicle is zero. I suspect people will be pissed off about those changes, but I think if I were CEO and had the authority, I would sleep better at night knowing I am doing everything to try to curtail pedestrian deaths because of my product.
Amezarak 3y ago
People are making snaps (I see ZILLIONS of stories made by car drivers), scrolling through TikTok, watching YouTube, sending texts, not just making calls. There is a very simple technological solution to this - disable screens on phones in motion faster than xmph - but people are violently against this minor inconvenience for passengers and mass transport commuters for the same reason drivers can't put their phone down, so this problem will likely continue to get worse, especially as the younger generation becomes drivers.
- ejb999 3y ago
  I am more or less in favor of this - but how do you solve for the problem that not everyone in the car is actually driving and may not want to be prevented from using their phone when riding as a passenger? If we can solve that one, it sounds like a no-brainer to me.
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    I don't think you can in an intelligent way. One simple solution would be to only disable the screen if the phone is connected to car Bluetooth - but this would just result in most phone addicts not connecting their phone to the car. That's why people are against it - the idea of passengers returning to the pre-smartphone era while traveling seems to be considered by most people totally outrageous and and unacceptable price to pay for lowering the accident rate, which has climbed almost solely to due smartphones.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      > most people totally outrageous and and unacceptable What's totally outrageous and unacceptable is the idea that my phone can tell me when I'm allowed to use it or not, based on arbitrary rules set up by tech clowns who are not in my current situation and do not know why I might need it. It's frankly asinine to suggest I should not be able to look up a map of a city while riding a bus because someone else might be texting and driving. Most people would find this outrageous because it is.
    - 3y ago
polski-g 3y ago
Will CarPlay read Twitter to me?
Angostura 3y ago
As a Carplay user I plead guilty to having been distracted by it in the past while driving, though I think it generally does a good job of it.

paulcole 3y ago

I wouldn’t expect much to change. We love our cars and we love our phones. The number of pedestrian deaths we’re willing to tolerate is going to be much higher than anyone is willing to admit. You can handwring all you want about how that’s not true but just look around.

trollbridge 3y ago
Ultimately, cars and pedestrians need to be kept apart. Cars belong on a mode like a controlled access highway. Pedestrians belong basically everywhere else.
- paulcole 3y ago
  Right. Great to say, but in the US nobody really gives a shit. They’ll say they do but their actions tell the truth.

fusslo 3y ago

I bought a new car this year. It has HUGE blindspots behind the pillars (it's an SUV). They're placed in line with the crosswalk when I'm at a red light. So I have to bob my head around if I want to see anyone about to cross the mirrors FOV also are extremely limited! My last car was a 1998 volvo. It had side mirrors that were half convex to give you a wider FOV. I can't believe how much better it is than my 2024 SUV! I can't understand how cars have any blindspots in 2024. Surely we have the ability to design better mirrors, more cameras, smaller pillars..

loloquwowndueo 3y ago
Return the car and buy one without those defects?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bonton89 3y ago
  Pretty sure crash test requirements are the cause of a lot of the shrinking sight lines in modern cars so any newer car is going to have these kinds of problems to some degree.
  - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
    Those crash test requirements should take into account what you’re crashing into :) it’s all the protection for the car occupants and none for those in the real word.
sokoloff 3y ago
Pillar mounted airbags are one reason pillars got so much wider in the mid-2000s.
- wyldfire 3y ago
  Those are on the B-pillars, near the driver/passenger heads - but they don't put em on the A-pillars, too, do they?

ajuc 3y ago

If smartphones were the root cause - it wouldn't diverge between USA and Europe. The insanity of driving trucks instead of compact cars in cities is a big factor.

loloquwowndueo 3y ago
Being hit by 1 ton of metal vs. being hit by 3 tons of metal still sounds rather painful.
- boredpudding 3y ago
  You have more visibility in a smaller car. So the smaller car has a lower chance of hitting you.
- wanderingstan 3y ago
  Not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but the research is clear that trucks (and other high front end vehicles) are more likely to kill pedestrians: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-vertical-front-ends-pose-greater-risk-to-pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v... > Whatever their nose shape, pickups, SUVs and vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches are about 45 percent more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than cars and other vehicles with a hood height of 30 inches or less and a sloping profile, an IIHS study of nearly 18,000 pedestrian crashes found.
  - bonton89 3y ago
    Trucks have turned into real monsters. Others on here have mentioned that legislation intended to improve fuel economy had some sort of yearly increasing weight category that was suppose to reduce the amount of large vehicles. But manufacturers all gamed it by just increasing the weight and size vehicles to stay above the line.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Sure. Pedestrian protection on trucks, especially US trucks / SUVs is much worse compared to more compact designs. As is visibility forbthe driver. Combined, this is bad news for pedestrians and cyclists. Add distractions by phones, and it is a potential desaster.

DannyBee 3y ago

Only 15% of pedestrian hit by car fatalities are prosecuted. Of those, the vast majority were DUI as well. So 85% if the time, there are no consequences for killing a pedestrian with your car. If you are sober, it's like 95%. Even when they do prosecute, juries tend to acquit on major charges. They put themselves in the shoes in the driver instead of the victim.

c-linkage 3y ago
My feeling is that, in the US, automobile regulations are derived from horse and carriage regulations. When the horse was pulling the cart, it could get spooked and run off, killing or injuring pedestrians. Even though the driver nominally has control of the horse, the horse is an independent entity. This limited the liability of the driver. For example, if the horse ran off and killed someone, as long as the driver stuck around to explain, they wouldn't suffer very much in terms of consequences. It seems today that automobiles, although not an independent entity, still get the same kind of protections as a horse does. That's why and automobile driver who kills a pedestrian in the street can basically get off scot-free, even though the driver has full control over the automobile at the time.
- salawat 3y ago
  And with self-driving we're moving back toward that lessened liability because who knows how the damn thing works.
ryandrake 3y ago
As the saying goes: If you want to murder someone and maximize the chance you get away with it, hit them with your car. The US criminal justice system is ridiculously permissive on car accidents even when people die.

TomMasz 3y ago

This is the major reason I sold my motorcycle this past summer. It's bad enough that drivers have a hard time seeing motorcycles, multiple in-car distractions just make it worse. It was fun while it lasted. I don't ride my bicycle on the roads for the same reason.

JKCalhoun 3y ago
I'm saddened when I see people insulate themselves from life's pleasures. I don't wish for this to come across in a way that makes you feel defensive — it's your life to live as you choose. I have friends that seem to have settled into a lifestyle that steers clear of dangers and I have watched as they have lived, from my point of view, very insular lives lacking that rare excitement that the world has to offer.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Every motorcycle owner I've known has been struck by others or had very serious close calls, except one who didn't have it very long. Of those struck two of the five nearly died, one is a quadriplegic. Riding motorcycles in urban areas is betting your life on other people's awareness.
  - JKCalhoun 3y ago
    I think I only know one motorcycle owner that was seriously injured (on a scooter, in college). I've owned a motorcycle more years than not since I was 12 years old. For some stretches of that time the motorcycle was the only motorized transportation I could afford and I relied on it (even in the winter on icy streets) to get to and from work and college. And I've dropped motorcycles a few times, slammed into the back of a bus once (icy), but otherwise have been okay. I'm older now and less desperate and so can afford to take the motorcycle out only on joy rides where I can pick the weather and the destination (out of the urban areas). And not to stereotype bikers too much, but I might add that I have never owned a sport/racing bike. I am more like the gentleman motorcyclist of an earlier era, ha ha. Obviously the above has made riding much safer. I don't think I could completely give up riding though until I become physically unable to. I don't offer this to refute your experience but rather to complement your comment with an example of a rider (turning 60 this year) that has not been seriously injured and has enjoyed the "sport".

LucasBrandt 3y ago

In 2023 I moved into an apartment across from a school in Chicago. The room I work in looks over the street. It's shocking how many drivers are looking at their phone as they approach a crosswalk where children are actively crossing to go to school! It's worse in the morning: parents drop off their own child and they just pick the phone right up, I guess. Other kids be damned.

drewbug01 3y ago
My living room backs up to a T-intersection in the alley. I also live next door to a school. Every. Single. Day. I see parents on their phone blowing through the stop signs in the alley at that intersection. During school drop-off! While there are kids and parents walking in that alley to get to the school! It is utter madness.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  No enforcement, no consequences, so nobody is going to change.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

Unpopular opinion: pedestrians need to be MORE aware crossing streets. Stop jay walking and assuming people see you and will stop. Same with bicyclists. You may have the right of way but it doesn't matter when your critically injured or worse: dead.

stby 3y ago
I don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all, but it's still just victim blaming. People are run over on sidewalks, cyclists on cycling paths or just standing at red lights. There's basically only one type of road user that is a danger to anyone else [0], the focus should be to make drivers less dangerous and not to make everyone else even more aware. Where I live people already wear high-viz clothing when riding a bike or even just going for a walk, but still get run over. [0] https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/collision-matrix-2019.pdf https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/collisio...
- freitzkriesler2 3y ago
  Story time, I had to dive bomb out of the way of a car that lost it brakes and had ran onto the sidewalk. I am alive today because I keep my head up and pay attention to the world around me. It's not victim blaming to be aware of one's surroundings and act accordingly. Too many people are passively going through their day and lack complete situational awareness. Wake up and pay attention when there are 2.5 ton steel death machines around and no I'm not going to click your link.
  - stby 3y ago
    Story time. I find myself to be pushing a stroller around a lot these days, and the number of times where I have to wait behind some obstacles to make place for another stroller, kids, someone in a wheelchair, a blind person, old people with walkers, is much higher than I thought it would be when I was just my agile, young self. I'm sure they'd all love to dive bomb away from cars that are running into them.

xnx 3y ago

This will get worse until self driving cars are common. Collectively we value using our phones and driver safety much more than pedestrian lives.

alamortsubite 3y ago
Self-driving could be one way to fix the problem at some hand-wavy time in the future. Right now, however, reducing the number of cars in cities, slowing them down, making alternatives to driving more attractive, improving driver education and awareness, and changing the concept of car safety to include people outside the vehicle are all options available to us. Unlike automated driving, these address other problems our society faces, too, like obesity, insularity, pollution, and climate change.
- xnx 3y ago
  That would be great, but history has shown doing those things to be less realistic. I'm in Phoenix and Waymo is all over and driving safely. We need this everywhere ASAP.
  - alamortsubite 3y ago
    History hasn't shown that at all. In many places, these changes are already happening, and fast. Meanwhile, self-driving cars are a relative pipe dream and likely to cause even bigger problems than we have now, if and when they ever materialize.

johnea 3y ago

> The United States is increasingly an outlier when it comes to... ...any form of industry regulation. Don't expect this to improve. The US is firmly entrenched in 1950s arrested development. WRT pedestrian deaths, pedestrian cell phone usage is also culpable, but cell phone use behind the wheel, especially at freeway speeds, is straight up criminal negligence. But everyone knows: "driving is such a distraction from playing w/ the phone"...