
Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers - zdosb
http://blog.zendrive.com/2019-distracted-driving-study-phone-addicts-are-the-new-drunk-drivers/
======
wcarron
As others have said, as a motorcyclist, my number one concern on the road is a
person using their mobile device while driving. I am less worried about road
rage (which is still a top concern for me) than distracted drivers.

I see it literally hundreds of times a day. People are driving their cars at
over 70mph while texting. They use instagram and facebook at stoplights. They
text or call while driving too fast down residential roads. They cause traffic
delays because they don't accelerate at a green light for many seconds after
the car in front of them has.

I have seen them hit other cars and narrowly miss pedestrians in crosswalks,
completely oblivious half the time that they nearly murdered someone.

If I pull up next to them and tell them to put their phone down by pantomime,
half the time they flip me off, laugh, or lay on their horn. They do not think
they are doing anything wrong and that I am the asshole for telling them to
put the phone down.

Distracted drivers are murderers. Distracted drivers are guilty of reckless
endangerment. Distracted drivers need to be punished with prejudice. It is
statistically more dangerous than driving intoxicated.

~~~
alexktz
I emigrated from the UK to USA last September and the number of people I see
on the freeway here with their phone in their hands is a constant source of
amazement for me.

As a keen road cyclist in the UK I actually have bought an off-road bike
because I simply don't trust US drivers.

In fact, the standard of driving here is frankly appalling. Tailgating and
speeding is rampant. Lane surfing is rife. Couple that with just generally
less safety street furniture at intersections and the laughably easy driving
tests it's frightening really.

People say self driving cars are a danger, frequently the media report every
Autopilot crash but what about the hundreds every day caused by some idiot
texting? IMHO the sooner we take the distracted meatbag out of the driving
equation, the better. I'm a car guy who just did a 2000 mile roadtrip to the
Tail of the Dragon but this has to stop.

More enforcement and stricter penalties. Social stigma might be more powerful
than this though.

~~~
nojvek
I am guilty of this. What I wish to see is a better device that doesn’t
distract the attention from the road.

A better voice input so I don’t have to type.

The biggest distraction is a notification comes and you want to see what it
is.

But you are right. The best soln is not to use your phone.

~~~
Phillipharryt
Honest question. Why do you feel you need any device when driving? Other than
for navigation I suppose. As a confessed user do you actually feel it's
important to have access to a device while you drive?

~~~
nojvek
I like to be connected I guess. Waiting in traffic sucks, it’s boring as hell.
My commute is 1.5 hours each way.

To be honest, I want a self lane following car. Reliably keep distance from
car in front, keep the current lane, don’t exceed speed limit. Don’t bumps
into objects, stop on traffic lights

5 simple things. I feel like this should be doable reliably in the next
decade.

I don’t want to drive. I don’t have another more convenient option.

~~~
alexktz
I have all these features in a 2016 Golf GTI (except traffic light one). The
future isn't that far away for the masses.

------
btrettel
I'm a cyclist. Over the past 5 years or so I've learned to check inside of
people's cars to see if they have a phone in their hands. If they do, I try to
keep as much distance between myself and them as possible.

Until we change the incentives, distracted driving is very likely to remain a
problem. Right now there's a lot of talk but very little action. I live in
Austin, and I've spoken with the police about distracted driving after nearly
being hit by a driver who ran a red light because they were distracted by
their phone. (I spoke with them afterward.) The police tell me that they
periodically do distracted driving enforcement operations, but only in school
zones so that they get double fines. I've never seen a single distracted
driving enforcement operation in Austin, but I've gone through cyclist stop
sign enforcement twice. It would be interesting to see the statistics here.
How many people are ticketed for distracted driving every year?

~~~
devoply
It's trivial to mandate a phone be designed so that it can't be used in a
moving car or for a certain amount of time since it has experienced
significant acceleration. In fact you could ban certain apps like txting and
calling during these times. I guess you could even mandate tech to help the
phone figure out where in the car the person is sitting and only disable their
phone.

~~~
aqme28
It would be hard to filter out the false positives. I'm almost always a
passenger or riding a train. Locking out my phone during either of those
situations would be a problem.

~~~
btrettel
I can recall a girl playing Pokemon Go on a train. The app seemed to detect
the motion and asked her if she was driving every 10 minutes or so.

~~~
slavik81
It's quite frequent even if you're standing still. GPS drift, noise and
corrections cause a lot of false positives for movement.

------
bluedino
DUI and driving while using your phone should have equal punishment.

I’m not advocating drinking and driving, but phone use is “no harm, no foul”
right now. On the other hand you can drive without crashing into anyone but if
you’ve had two glasses of wine with dinner, you can get charged with a crime.

~~~
maccio92
Cellphone use while driving is a primary offense in Ohio, meaning you can get
pulled over solely got that and receive a citation

~~~
jeffdavis
A citation is nothing. A couple drinks will put you in jail, cost you your
license for a while, maybe your job, and thousands of dollars.

~~~
Pharmakon
My wife got her start as an attorney in the U.S. and her first criminal cases
as defense counsel were for drunk divers. It ended up driving (no pun) her
away from defense work, because these guys were inveterate offenders and never
got more than a slap on the wrist. The penalties on the books for DUI and the
penalties actually administered are often miles apart. That may have changed
in the last decade though, I can’t say.

~~~
koolba
What do you consider a slap on the wrist? Everyone I know that’s had a DUI
lost their license for a min amount of time with exponential increases for
repeat offenders (one month, then two years, then 10 years). And that’s only
the ones that weren’t involved in a collision.

~~~
tomjen3
Lol, a month for the first offence?

Seriously in Denmark you get 20 days suspended prison if your are above 2.0
for a first offense. If you are above 1.2 you lose your license for a minimum
of 3 years. If below 2, your fine is "only" your net salary for the month....

------
oarabbus_
I was hit on the highway by a phone user who almost killed me and my parents.
Speed differential was 55mph. That is, we were completely stopped on the
highway and she drove for something like a quarter mile and hit us, leaving me
with nerve damage and severe lower back pain. Luckily rehab went stellar and
although I have some residual burning/stinging nerve damage, I can walk, run,
play sports, go to the gym - you wouldn't even have known that I spent some
time in a neck brace, cast, and back pain so back I could hardly leave my bed
(but it also hurt just as bad to lay in bed) after almost being killed by the
distracted driver.

Oh yeah, the concussion too. That was pretty rough as well.

~~~
magnetic
How did you know she was distracted by her phone? I'm asking not because I
don't believe you, but because my wife got rear ended about a week ago, and
when the person got out of his car, he had his cell phone in his hand, but
that's what you'd expect after a collision (calling
family/insurance/police/etc).

Did you have to go through a discovery process or?

What happened to the distracted driver?

~~~
oarabbus_
To add to it - the driver was ALSO drunk (well, above the legal limit) and
also, get this, a nurse.

I was told by my lawyer that the police investigation concluded that she was
guilty of DUI but that due her statements the cell phone was implicated as the
reason. She was above .08 barely, but she was presumably not drunk enough to
drive for a quarter mile or more without looking up at the road.

------
sxates
Here's my test for phone addiction (for men): If you are pissing into a urinal
and need to look at your phone during those 15 seconds, you have a problem.
And I see this a _lot_.

A scary game: when in stop and go traffic, have a look at the person behind
you. Are their eyes on the road, or their lap? In my experience, 7 out of 10
are looking at their lap, with a quick glance up every 5 seconds or so.

I spend plenty of time on my phone, but geez, have some phone free moments
every now and then.

~~~
everly
I don't think your test is all that good. If I'm out with friends, I try to
consciously avoid using my phone when we're together so that I'm present and
so that they know I value their presence. Those 15 seconds at the urinal are
often the best time to check notifications before getting back to phone-free
socializing.

Agree with your other points though.

~~~
Dumblydorr
Why do notifications need to be checked?

~~~
everly
To see if any are important enough to require action?

------
mig4ng
This is extremely bad. In Portugal I don't cross the road if the person is
using a phone, unless they fully stop of course. Yet this is a problem so big
that even people walking cross roads with their faces glued to their phones.

It happened to me more than once almost getting into an accident, both while
walking or driving because the other party is distracted by a smartphone
instead of paying attention to driving or walking. People cross road like
complete maniacs while using smartphones, luckily I have quick response time
to brake the car, but there are other people that might not have such luck. I
am afraid that in the future when my response time increases this might become
a problem, even if I lower the velocity.

I never use my phone while driving, not even in stop signs or red lights. Yet
it is so socially acceptable to do it these days it's disgusting. I hate this
so much I make an simple website to try to raise awareness[1]. I haven't
dedicated much time promoting it because it was just a small side project to
experiment with TailwindCSS, but I might as this problem affects even my
family...

[1] [https://github.com/mig4ng/2min.pink](https://github.com/mig4ng/2min.pink)

~~~
ummonk
What is the big deal with phone use at a red light? It will, at worst, hold up
traffic slightly.

~~~
underwater
What should possibly need your attention when stopped at a red light?

If it's something frivolous then it can wait. If it's important then are you
really able to compartmentalize it? Will you be able to put the conversation
out of your mind, or ghost your chat partner as soon as traffic starts moving?

~~~
ummonk
Are you saying people shouldn't be driving if they have something on their
mind or a passenger they're chatting with?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Interestingly, chatting with a physical passenger in the car is an entirely
different level of distraction, from trying to chat with someone you can't see
on the other end of the phone. For some reason (invoking visual synthesis to
imagine how they are responding?) the phone case takes quite a bit more mental
effort.

Try putting 'blinders' on when talking to a passenger and driving normally.
E.g. put a hand up so you can't see them, even out of the corner of your eye.
This A/B test (for me anyway) ups the mental effort 2X or more.

------
tjstankus
As a motorcyclist, this has become my primary concern on the roads in the past
few years. I constantly and actively check for drivers using their phones. If
I can see their eyes or heads glancing up and down, I get far away. If they're
having trouble staying in their lane, I get far away. At night, if their faces
are illuminated in a blue glow, they're holding their phones and I get far
away. I use those techniques in addition to all the other safety measures you
get taught by the MSF. If I didn't love riding so much, I'd quit. Seriously.
It's more dangerous than it's ever been. You have to be so diligent. But on
two wheels, an open road without distracted drivers is still as glorious as it
has ever been.

------
SketchySeaBeast
This is "old man yells at cloud" area, but seriously - why can we not just
leave our phones in our pocket until we get to our destination? What's that
important?

~~~
neutronicus
My wife expects timely logistical updates.

~~~
deathanatos
Your wife's desire for timely updates comes second to the legal (and,
hopefully, moral) requirement of not recklessly and needlessly endangering
those around you while operating a motor vehicle.

------
gedy
My neighbor was killed walking on sidewalk in a parking lot. Driver was
staring at phone in his lap and missed turn, plowed directly into him. Put
your goddamn phone away... and trying to "hide it" in your lap is worse than
just holding it up in windshield.

~~~
casefields
Unintended consequences strikes again.

------
bonaldi
I ride a bike in London traffic and you can tell which drivers are on phones
from quite some distance. I think when police stop them they are mystified as
to how they got caught - they genuinely don’t realise just how all-over-the-
place they are.

------
FlyingSideKick
I worked at T-Mobile and did some work on this very subject our studies showed
that people are so addicted that unless there is a threat of jail time or
drivers license suspension people will not put down their phones.

~~~
max76
I don't understand why people see the possibility of a drivers license
suspension as being worse than the increased risk of vehicular manslaughter.

One is a few months of decreased mobility. The other is an entire life.

~~~
wahern
They're not convinced that it impairs their driving.

Consider that a plurality, if not a majority of the population is convinced
that they're efficient at multi-tasking, and specifically that they can
perform each task as well as in isolation. But we know that almost nobody
multitasks well, period, and absolutely not with equivalent performance.

~~~
mrguyorama
Don't forget that a vast majority of the population thinks that they are above
average at $TASK, no matter what it is

------
yardie
In this day and age of really great machine learning I find that most people
refuse to use voice services unless they are forced to do so (usually because
of injury). Trying to tap out a message at 80km/h on a 5" screen is pretty
fucking futile. But most distracted drivers will attempt to do it anyway.

Here's a neat trick, just say, "Hey Siri* Send a message to $firstname
$lastname's $phone. Tell them I'm [on my way, 5 minutes away, picking up milk,
buying pizza]"

* Or whatever platform you use. I'm an iOS user.

~~~
itg
I tried, but Siri is still really bad at speech recognition whenever I try it.

~~~
LeoPanthera
If your accent doesn't match the country you are in, change Siri's language to
your native one. As a British person living in the USA, if I don't set Siri to
British, she has a terrible time understanding me, but it works fine on
British mode.

~~~
ben509
Not always; if you set it to Scotland, the phone just complains that it can't
understand you either in angrily incomprehensible brogue.

------
nostromo
This is taken as an obvious truth, but when you look at actual collision data,
there seems to be no effect whatsoever.

In fact, our roads have continued to become safer in the 10 or so years since
the release of the iPhone.

~~~
yardie
Car fatalities are down because the passenger compartment has become safer.
Pedestrian fatalities are up because idiots are still plowing into them [0]

[0] [https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/522085503/2016-saw-a-
record-i...](https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/522085503/2016-saw-a-record-
increase-in-pedestrian-deaths)

------
pcurve
Human drivers are becoming less road worthy. Full autonomous drive can't come
soon enough.

------
chris_mc
I was driving about 3mph in traffic texting my wife and did 3500 dollars
damage to my car. I'm glad I learned my lesson the easy way instead of killing
someone.

 _Don 't text and drive no matter what, it's easy to pull over if it's
necessary!_

~~~
Someone1234
Sorry that happened. Thanks for sharing.

What damage on your vehicle caused the high cost of repairs? Just surprisingly
high for a 3~ MpH impact.

~~~
matwood
A lot of cars today have body panels that have to be replaced instead of
repaired. Add in any sort of special paint color and a single panel can run
$1k to make like new. Side swipe something that runs across a few panels and
it can quickly add up.

~~~
yardie
I backed out a parking spot and into some guy speeding through the lot. Me, a
bit of rubber on the bumper that I wiped off with a magic eraser. Him, front
quarter panel and both passenger doors had to be replaced. I was pissed off
about the unfairness of it all. That him driving reckless and me being in the
wrong place made me at fault for thousands of dollars in damage.

I'm not surprised to see a car accident with wildly different results on both
vehicles.

~~~
Someone1234
Aren't you at fault though even per your own version?

You pulled into a driving lane that the other vehicle was already in. Your
justification for why you shouldn't be at fault is that he was "speeding" but
there's no set speed limit in a parking lot, and you're meant to verify it is
clear before locomotion.

Plus if you witnessed them "speeding" you would have known you were pulling
out in front of them, which makes you in the wrong anyway. If you didn't know
they were oncoming you couldn't have known they were "speeding." It doesn't
make basic logical sense that you could have both known they were speeding AND
pulled out into them, because to know that you would have had eyes on their
car.

~~~
yardie
Yes, I’m at fault simply for backing out into the lane as far as the insurer
is concerned. I’m also at fault for not having eyes in superposition. I can’t
simultaneously see out of my rear left and rear right.

All to say, you weren’t there and don’t know what happened. And I’ll leave it
at that.

------
jeffdavis
Matthew Walker's book _Why We Sleep_ makes a clear case that drowsy driving is
worse than drink driving, too.

So that would mean drunk driving is actually the _third_ leading cause of
impaired driving damage.

Why is the third cause villified, but not the first two?

~~~
fenwick67
> So that would mean drunk driving is actually the third leading cause of
> impaired driving damage.

That's a hard "citation needed" claim you're making.

------
Tiktaalik
Peculiar to blame the phone for killing people and not the several ton object
that crashes into them.

Of course people should stay off their phones, but there are plenty of ways
that people can make mistakes driving, and the best way to make pedestrians
safe is to limit their interactions with cars.

We need to fundamentally back away from the automobile oriented design of our
cities. This is the real solution, not doubling down on car infrastructure and
hoping that some vaporware self driving software will save us.

------
tlynchpin
I had just started actually reading TFA because this topic interests me, I was
skimming past some infographic of "phone addicts spend x% not looking at the
road" when - pop! - a little distraction popped up in the bottom right corner
offering "hey <domainname> wanna chat". A distraction, a creepy "personalized"
one no less, on an article about distractions. Too meta for me, I ctrl-w'd
outta there.

~~~
aembleton
It got me too. I've now disabled JS for that site in uMatrix.

------
heroHACK17
Texting while driving and drunk driving should be treated as the SAME offense.

~~~
mjevans
It's possible to go from composition to focused in the span of time it takes
to move the hand (and eyes) from the phone back to driving mode.

It isn't possible to become 'not drunk' that quickly.

I rank drunk driving as worse than dealing with screaming kids as worse than
writing something at a red-light as worse than just reading a preview on the
screen for a measured quantity of time when in a situation that is safe enough
to mentally relax and not be at 100% focus is at-hand.

~~~
jahewson
The article suggest that this isn't true. You can't regain situational
awareness instantaneously:

> The researchers specifically found that cell phone users are:

> \- 9 percent slower to deploy the brakes

> \- 19 percent slower to return to normal speed after braking

~~~
mjevans
That isn't relevant to the context I'm talking about. Any kind of actual
composition of text should only happen while stopped; E.G. at a red light (and
ideally NOT while first in line).

------
sethhochberg
Its disappointing to see that so many voices in this discussion are focused on
self-driving cars and the like as the savoir solutions - I always wish there
would be some discussion of ways to help people be less reliant on cars, so
they spend less time driving, are less likely to get distracted while doing
it, and everybody is both safer _and_ living in a less car-centric world.

We are - realistically - decades away from outright bans on human-operated
vehicles at any real scale... so why not try to reign in the ever-expanding
sprawl and car-centric planning that encourages/requires such widespread use
of vehicles by distracted people, drunk people, etc in the first place? If its
not alcohol, its phones. If its not phones, its makeup, or breakfast, or a
fight with a passenger... more people who can walk, take transit, bike, etc
means fewer deadly distractions or impairments.

------
LesZedCB
this new world of connectedness really has some major downsides.

distracted driving.

instagram killing natural spaces from lack of crowd control.

decreased mental wellbeing and increased suicide rates.

facebook privacy concerns.

somebody needs to tackle these social crises, since the incentive is not there
for the companies to address it themselves.

------
mindslight
During the T9 days, was texting while driving statistically safer, or merely
not a problem due to general low adoption/addiction? It feels like
touchscreens in general are horrible input devices, which we compensate for by
devoting an awful lot of attention to using them.

I'm not asking because I'm personally interested in "safe" ways to text and
drive or whatever, just really to contextualize. It also seems highly relevant
to the crop of cars being released with touchscreens and soft controls for
what have traditionally been tactile interfaces.

~~~
cnasc
> During the T9 days, was texting while driving statistically safer

I have fond memories of being in high school and texting one-handed in class
on my Blackberry without looking. Not quite as ideal as T9 for one-handed use,
but I was essentially stupid for the few moments I spent doing that. My brain
was elsewhere. The problem with distracted driving isn't purely vision
(although that's a factor). The mental context-switch is a huge problem.

------
helloguillecl
I am seeing users on their mobiles very frequently when I see through the back
mirror while driving in the city where I live. I assume this is mostly
WhatsApp use.

Phone and software makers have an unique opportunity to save lives on the road
by taking measures to prevent this terrible behaviour. They'll be rewarded by
getting some of the public trust back, and seeing they are optimizing around
public good as opposed to eyeballs.

A good example is Android Auto, which prevents the driver from typing on the
car's screen while driving.

~~~
delfinom
The problem is always differentiating between driver and passenger.

~~~
helloguillecl
I was thinking the same thing, but for example, you could put black boxes
recording phone usage for the police to access in case of an accident or
random pull-over.

------
dmckeon
1) front and rear-facing dash cams to defend against damage claims

2) configure cars to track phone usage, time-stamped, and downloadable thru
the OBD port. If driver is sole occupant, some use of phone would be provable.
No good for off-line activity, like games. Obvious privacy issues like other
OBD data.

3) Pedestrians need an app for the “self-walking phone” with sub-1-meter
location accuracy that flashes green man, or yellow or red hand when phone-
obsessed user is about to step off curb into cross-walk or traffic.

~~~
helloguillecl
2) Actually the black box could be in the phone itself. Could be actually be
implemented in existing phones via software upgrade.

------
blang
I wonder if this could be solved (or at least made drastically better) with
insurance incentives + technology.

Idea would be reward drivers willing to ditch their phones while driving
entirely, by having drastically reduced car insurance rates.

I'm not sure how it would work, but there would be a system in the car that
would verify there is no active phone. Clearly there are a lot of details to
be worked out both on the technological, insurances pricing, and privacy
sides, but it feels like this could be a way forward.

------
lobster45
Having the self driving features on a car such as Tesla auto pilot has really
made this problem worse. People rely on their cars to stop in time, although
this is not always the case

~~~
matz1
Self driving features is the solution of the phone addicts.

------
kldavis4
I wonder if there is not some technological solution that can be built into
smartphones to prevent this from happening. I realize that they are doing
double duty as GPS & music, but imagine if your phone could detect that you
are in the driver's seat and the car is moving and disable any application but
the GPS. I know this would be hard, but it doesn't seem like it would be
"self-driving car" hard and would have immediate societal benefit.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Apple's CarPlay heavily restricts what you can do while moving - you can only
browse through lists that are short, and you can't type anything. These
functions are replaced with talking to Siri, which it is assumed you can do
with your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.

------
davidrupp
Driving my car (phone in pocket, do-not-disturb on):

Yesterday: Passed a college-aged kid on a (edit: motorized) scooter, no
helmet, going about 45 mph, reading his phone.

Today: Passed a middle-school-aged kid (edit: on a bicycle), with a helmet,
going about 3 mph, reading his phone.

Not sure which earns his Darwin Award first. It's a problem, either way.

~~~
johnthedebs
I don’t know if I follow, are you saying the second example is a problem? If
you are, it’s not clear to me why that is.

And are you sure the scooter was going 45mph? That seems unrealistically fast
given that even on my bike (which is probably much more stable) achieving
20+mph in NYC is pretty uncommon.

~~~
davidrupp
And yes, the kid on his bike is a problem. More of a problem, in some ways.
This was in my neighborhood, so speeds were low all around. But I had to time
passing him very carefully, and I was very aware of how much he was weaving
around the road, however slowly. And this kid will be on a scooter next. Then
in a car. And having his phone available at all times will be even more
second-nature to him. Maybe he'll get lucky, and truly autonomous vehicles
will be a thing before he gets himself killed or badly injured.

Maybe.

------
nl
Isn't using a phone while driving illegal in most countries now?

Here in Australia you can only touch one if it is in one of those GPS holder
things, with ~$400 fines for non-compliance.

The police put a few plain clothed ppl at traffic lights and raise thousands.
Sure it's revenue raising, but the message gets out pretty quickly.

~~~
markmark
Not sure how quickly that message is getting out, mobile phone use while
driving is very common here. It's _really_ noticeable when you're on a
motorbike, your view is clearer, but also being a little higher you can see
the phone on people's laps as they drive along looking down at them.

~~~
nl
I'm a cyclist. I know how bad it is, but ppl know that they are doing the
wrong thing now at least.

------
fqwefqwef341
In The Netherlands, even texting while riding your bicycle will likely be
outlawed in a few months [1]. Personally I think this is overreach, akin to
forbidding pedestrians to use their phone while walking the sidewalk: they're
risking (mostly) their own life, not endangering the lives of others. (Yes, I
got hit by a distracted bicyclist once in my life, and many many more close
calls.)

[1] [https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/fiets/vraag-en-
antw...](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/fiets/vraag-en-antwoord/mag-
ik-bellen-en-naar-muziek-luisteren-op-de-fiets)

------
908087
Many here who work for companies like Facebook probably have blood on your
hands as a results of your pursuits to "increase engagement".

------
mailslot
I’m wondering if these aren’t the same people. The ones that, if not texting,
are driving while putting on makeup, ogling every lady in a dress, turning
into oncoming traffic, popping ambien, or driving drunk.

It seems like a personality type that’s generally careless and self important.
Texting isn’t much more distracting than the thousands of other unsafe things
people do.

------
heroHACK17
Additionally, imposing strict consequences (like a ban from driving, loss of
license, etc.) for phone addicts kills two birds with one stone: not only does
it save lives, it has the potential to remove A LOT of people from their cars
and onto public transportation which would drastically alleviate traffic
congestion.

------
silveira
tl;dr: I was hit by a driver using his phone, I was found guilty.

Last week I was changing lane in a very slow traffic traffic jam, I turn the
left sign, the driver completely stops. I assume this as he giving me space to
enter, I slowly enter. He then starts driving forward slowly, he starts
approaching, I'm puzzled. I realize he is driving with his phone on his face.
Completely unaware that I'm in his lane. He hits. We talk, he starts saying I
jumped in front of him, I just tell him he did not see me because he was on
the phone. He agrees and he apologizes. We exchange information and go back
home. It was only some scratches in our cars.

Later I do the insurance claim (we both had the same insurance company), and I
discover that in his report he omits about the phone. I now I have to prove
that he was one the phone and I have not jumped with my car in front of him. I
could not prove that. I do have a front dashcam but only a very good and
specifically placed dashcam would capture such proof. The insurance found me
guilty.

I don't know what was the lesson here, maybe always get a police report.
Contacting the police at the moment had not crossed my head because it was was
not a big deal, the driver sounded reasonable (apart from the fact he was
using the phone while driving), and there was something going on that was
causing the traffic jam and required the police in the first place.

~~~
btrettel
Sorry to hear about this. I ride a bike with a helmet cam and I started
narrating observations unlikely to be caught by camera. I'll often say
something like "distracted driver" when a distracted driver is nearby. It's
not perfect, but it might help in situations like this.

I have found from experience that reading off people's license plate numbers
tends to make them nervous, but that hasn't stopped me from doing it.

------
senectus1
I have Personalised licence plates that read "AFK".

It used to be a nerdy geek joke... but these days I see it as a bit of a
statement on my and (what others) driving habits should be.

------
xyproto
In a few years, non-automatically-driven cars will be the New Drunk Drivers.

------
carapace
Cars and phones already have the sensors and comms to be able to curb this
behavior, at least some of the time. Your car and phone "know" (potentially)
when you're using them at the same time. Is there a technological fix? And if
so, do we want to use it?

------
matz1
Good thing we are on the verge of realization of self driving car.

------
mjevans
I think there's a legitimate difference between a quick glance at a mobile and
actually trying to //compose// something on it. Even speech to text can be
poor enough that if it isn't dead simple it should wait until stopped.

Edit: If you disagree maybe you would like to reply with how and thus form an
actual discussion? I'm suggesting the split second shift of focus equivalent
to changing a radio-station or disc track is equally as distracting as a quick
glance at something and indicating that I /agree/ anything past that should be
a zero-motion dependent event.

~~~
ygra
No, there isn't. Have your phone read messages aloud when in the car, but just
reading something is not really that much better than trying to answer. Any
time your eyes leave the road/mirrors you have a chance to miss something
crucial. And yes, interacting with the entertainment system is just as bad,
that's why there are steering wheels with controls to change the track, to
enable the driver to do so without taking their eyes off the road.

Around here you get a fine and a slowly-decaying record of doing something
dangerous for any usage of a phone while in a car with the engine running.
That might seem too harsh, but I really think it isn't. If you've endangered
someone or damaged something while doing so it's also an immediate ban from
driving for a month. The only sad thing is that police has to catch you doing
this and that's rare.

~~~
mjevans
If the police are able to catch someone, then by definition they were
distracted. If a driver can see law enforcement (which should be clearly
marked as such, not some stealth car) then the distraction is only in the
minds of others, as enough attention is being put on the road to avoid
accidents and other issues.

