7 ms·

That's not realistic due to GPS and music. Maybe a warning with a eye tracker or something...

by conradfr 11mo ago

montroser 11mo ago
Listen to the radio and use a map? Driving is a privilege, not a right. Or just don't run people over while livestreaming and you can keep your Apple Maps and Spotify.
- mgerdts 11mo ago
  In ye olde days, drivers wrestling with maps were also criticized as being distracted and dangerous. Having been a driver in ye olde days in situations where a map was needed, I can confidently say that GPS initiated while stopped and used throughout a trip is far safer than the driver using a paper map while driving.
- eszed 11mo ago
  Using a paper map while driving can be way more distracting than a GPS. We really don't want to push people back to doing that. Your last two sentences point in the correct direction: we can't micro-target every behavior that might possibly become a dangerous distraction, because that's just about everything. Driving safely depends on self-regulation, and people incapable of self-regulating (to a minimum standard) shouldn't be granted the privilege of a license.
  - montroser 11mo ago
    Yeah, not while driving. Before we had GPS, people would look at the map before setting off if need be. But fair point that maybe the people who are addicted to their phone are not the people who are going to diligently study the map and remember directions before they start moving. Either way, there was a whole century of people driving just fine before satnav.
    - eszed 11mo ago
      > people would look at the map before setting off Yeah, I drove back then. That's not, in practice, what people did, or only what people did. People did map out a route ahead of time, of course, but when they (we) got confused, or missed a turn, out came the map - while driving. Not saying it's good, but that's what happened. > people driving just fine before satnav You can check the data. DOT's website is terrible, so I can't link to individual tables, but the relevant one is under Trends > General > Table 1: https://cdan.dot.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# https://cdan.dot.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# Fatalities and Injuries are obviously dependent on (very welcome!) advances in automobile safety design and medical care, but if accident rates have been increasing over time we'd expect to see many more "property damage only"° accidents. In fact, the raw number of those have been remarkably stable since 1988, despite a huge increase in miles traveled! There's even an absolute-number decrease between 2007 and 2013, which corresponds with the years during which mobile phones became ubiquitous, and a relative (to miles-traveled) decrease which continues to this day. None of this (of course!) excuses allowing oneself to use a phone in a distracting manner, but my conclusion is that mobile phones have, on net, made driving safer, rather than the reverse. — ° Or, alternatively "all-type"? I think "property damage" might be cleaner - and, in fact, it's strongly biased against my case, because it's risen from 67% of accidents at the beginning of the dataset to 71% more recently, due to exogenous safety and life-saving improvements.
- conradfr 11mo ago
  The world won't collectively decide to ban phone gps and bluetooth music, hence "it's not realistic".
ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
Some cars actually have this, and will track where your eyes are to determine if you're distracted and flash a big warning on the dashboard and make a loud noise. Mostly the ones I drove were able to tell if I was distracted by checking my instruments or mirrors, or over my shoulder before changing lanes. I came very close to just abandoning the fucking thing in a car park, and getting a train instead.

That's not realistic due to GPS and music. Maybe a warning with a eye tracker or something...

Listen to the radio and use a map? Driving is a privilege, not a right. Or just don't run people over while livestreaming and you can keep your Apple Maps and Spotify.

mgerdts 11mo ago
In ye olde days, drivers wrestling with maps were also criticized as being distracted and dangerous. Having been a driver in ye olde days in situations where a map was needed, I can confidently say that GPS initiated while stopped and used throughout a trip is far safer than the driver using a paper map while driving.
eszed 11mo ago
Using a paper map while driving can be way more distracting than a GPS. We really don't want to push people back to doing that. Your last two sentences point in the correct direction: we can't micro-target every behavior that might possibly become a dangerous distraction, because that's just about everything. Driving safely depends on self-regulation, and people incapable of self-regulating (to a minimum standard) shouldn't be granted the privilege of a license.
- montroser 11mo ago
  Yeah, not while driving. Before we had GPS, people would look at the map before setting off if need be. But fair point that maybe the people who are addicted to their phone are not the people who are going to diligently study the map and remember directions before they start moving. Either way, there was a whole century of people driving just fine before satnav.
  - eszed 11mo ago
    > people would look at the map before setting off Yeah, I drove back then. That's not, in practice, what people did, or only what people did. People did map out a route ahead of time, of course, but when they (we) got confused, or missed a turn, out came the map - while driving. Not saying it's good, but that's what happened. > people driving just fine before satnav You can check the data. DOT's website is terrible, so I can't link to individual tables, but the relevant one is under Trends > General > Table 1: https://cdan.dot.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# https://cdan.dot.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# Fatalities and Injuries are obviously dependent on (very welcome!) advances in automobile safety design and medical care, but if accident rates have been increasing over time we'd expect to see many more "property damage only"° accidents. In fact, the raw number of those have been remarkably stable since 1988, despite a huge increase in miles traveled! There's even an absolute-number decrease between 2007 and 2013, which corresponds with the years during which mobile phones became ubiquitous, and a relative (to miles-traveled) decrease which continues to this day. None of this (of course!) excuses allowing oneself to use a phone in a distracting manner, but my conclusion is that mobile phones have, on net, made driving safer, rather than the reverse. — ° Or, alternatively "all-type"? I think "property damage" might be cleaner - and, in fact, it's strongly biased against my case, because it's risen from 67% of accidents at the beginning of the dataset to 71% more recently, due to exogenous safety and life-saving improvements.
conradfr 11mo ago
The world won't collectively decide to ban phone gps and bluetooth music, hence "it's not realistic".

ErroneousBosh 11mo ago

Some cars actually have this, and will track where your eyes are to determine if you're distracted and flash a big warning on the dashboard and make a loud noise. Mostly the ones I drove were able to tell if I was distracted by checking my instruments or mirrors, or over my shoulder before changing lanes. I came very close to just abandoning the fucking thing in a car park, and getting a train instead.