The seatbelt people can kill themselves off, nothing to worry about there. Mobile phones definitely continue to be a big concern though. The number of people who are suspiciously glancing down at their lap every few seconds out on the road is pretty crazy.
The specific use of phones is barely discussed but worth doing so.
For example talking on a phone, or even in a car, is highly distracting and delays reactions. Passengers are generally more sensitive to context and weirdly somehow less distracting than phones. So that's something important to consider.
Listening to the radio is slightly distracting, and likewise listening to the radio played through the phone with notifications off. Doing this is probably fine and we should design roads and cars around the idea that people will listen to music, or sing, or whatever.
Fiddling with the radio is extremely dangerous, I'm sure we've all been rear ended or nearly so by someone doing it, and probably had a couple of "oops shouldn't have done that" moments ourselves. Likewise fiddling with phones.
The idea of banning all phone usage is a non starter, but we can probably introduce regulations like phones disabling certain features while cars are in motion but leaving them as useful for navigation and music etc.
phones disabling certain features while cars are in motion
A non-starter, unless it's an option made available to the user in the way that "car mode" already is. You can't just have it be automatic, because not everyone in a car is driving (even if the vast majority are). And if you were going purely on speed, you'd end up catching bus and train users too, which are almost entirely not driving.
Mmm you can definitely do stuff with pairing to a car disabling notifications etc.
if you want to send a text unpair as a passenger.
Shaping behaviour isn't about being flawless, it's about raising the barriers to antisocial behaviour.
The fact of the matter is that if we want to use heavy machinery we need to be willing to accept some restrictions for safety. you can't wear thongs in a machine shop and maybe you can't browse the web with your phone paired to the car.
Shaping behaviour isn’t about being flawless
I absolutely agree, but I think there are different kinds of flaws. If it creates a mere 2% increase in safety, that's perhaps worthwhile. But if it's restricting people who shouldn't be restricted, that's a hard no from me. If it's something as simple as clicking a button that says "I'm not driving", I'm okay with that. But if it can't be avoided at all as a passenger, it's a complete non-starter. If it requires unpairing from the car, that's a bit of a grey zone, but I'd personally lean towards "no". Why can't a passenger be the one to control the music (which must be the main reason to be paired to the car)? Surely that's increasing safety compared to if the driver is trying to do it?
Dude that's fucking nonsense.
Just lay out what you're saying and like really think through the consequences.
unpairing for a second to check a fact on Wikipedia or whatever isn't a massive imposition. I'm not even attached to that, it's just an example. It's not like passengers wouldn't control music and drivers would if you had to unpair to Google the year a song came out.
Anyway setting imaginary specifics aside your argument, taken at face value, would imply all sorts of regulations nobody actually wants rolled back except teenaged libertarians (no shade, I was also stupid once. it happens.).
Dude that’s fucking nonsense.
Dude chill the fuck out. No, it's not. Your position is so extreme it's going to result in zero compliance, because yes, it is a pretty big imposition. It's a ridiculous idea. Like seriously.
Lay out what you're saying and like really think through the consequences. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if a passenger had to unpair their phone every single time they want to send a text message or Google something. It's a laughable idea.
please keep it polite.
I expect cars in the future will have driver monitoring checking if the driver is sleepy, distracted, etc and will sound a warning.
I think android/ios should do a better job at making distraction free car-modes that only shows navigation and reads out text messages, etc.
Don't come the raw prawn I'm being plenty polite. At least by Aussie standards. What they said is nonsense, not them. I'm sure they're a reasonable person afk. We all get a bit of brain damage once we start typing haha.
I expect cars of the future to not exist given they're poisoning the world, killing us, and destroying our urban environments but I admit to being an eternal optimist. I like driving, well riding anyway (before I became too crippled), but it's not something we're very good at and cars are ludicrious machines for what they're used for. Like driving a tank to pin up a poster haha.
I’m being plenty polite. At least by Aussie standards.
We do have standards here and calling someone's comment "fucking nonsense" nears the line, even if it is indeed "fucking nonsense". I don't know what part of Australia you're from but in South-East Queensland that isn't polite
I have mine set to go to Airplane mode when it pairs to my car's Bluetooth.
It stops me being distracted by calls but allows me to listen to my music.
Yep, if it connects to an external audio device first - sometimes it does connect but then disconnect, but usually it works without issue!
I would love if it was disabled for everyone in my car. It is even pretty distracting when someone else (or more than one other person) is trying to have a conversion when I am driving, listening to music, audiobook or podcast.
Please shut the fuck up when I’m driving!
Phone calls are not the feature they would be most likely to disable. You're more likely to have passengers talking to you with their phones stuck in "driving mode" as they can't use them to quietly pass the time playing a game or reading or browsing social media or whatever else the driver shouldn't be doing with their phone.
introduce regulations like phones disabling certain features while cars are in motion but leaving them as useful for navigation and music etc.
my phone spotify goes into 'car mode' when driving, which is even more of a distraction to me, where the usual app i can operate almost in my sleep, the different layout means it takes me more concentration how to figure out how to change songs or whatever, despite all the icons being bigger and technically 'easier' to use.
not that im encouraging using it at all when in the car, im guilty and im sure a lot of people are too, but theres an example where the attempt to make something safer in my case actually made it more dangerous
sure, and people have made braking assist programs that are hypersensitive and get disabled.
Exactly because people going it alone make arse decisions is why guidlines and regulations would be a good thing to have.
In Italy whatever active use of a phone is banned already by the law. If an officer sees you with a phone they can stop you and issue a fine. Stil its not enforced enough
it's already illegal you goose. People still use phones while driving. Safety needs to be designed into things, you can't fine it into existence.
it's already illegal
What is your answer to that? Do nothing else?
you goose
Safety needs to be designed into things, you can't fine it into existence.
Fines and regulations and especially taxes do shape behavior and always have, "you goose."
Do you not see me arguing for phones to lock features when in cars or whatever elsewhere?
We have been increasing penalties for phones, we have deployed automated surveillance cameras that issue fines for using a phone at lights, it's not working making it double triple illegal wont do jack shit.
There are rapidly diminising returns with severity of punishment, separation between punishment and action, and perception of not getting caught.
Unless you want to live in a totalitarian surveillance state where cops can wank to live feeds from our vehicles we need to put the responsibility on the makers of the stupid distraction boxes and toddler crushing machines by using regulations to make the devices safer.
could you enforce that though? just drive an older car and/or don't pair your phone to the stereo.
Education campaigns could help, as you say it's the responsibility of the end user here, but I just think tech-gated solutions won't get us far enough, if at all.
We're already in a totalitarian surveillance state tbh, we're talking about what to do with our personal surveillance devices while we operate heavy machinery, most of which is fitted with dashcams as well
You don't really need to enforce it at the end user level.
You're not trying to stop reckless Teddy who drives drunk and texts while masturbating. You're trying to stop people who otherwise have good intentions making a poor decision because of a distracting alert, a passing impulse etc.
It's like a seatbelt alarm. you can ignore it, you can disconnect the chime, you can stuff foam into the speaker. Nobody does, it's to help people who were probably going to put on a seatbelt anyway make that call, in case they forgot or were going to give it a miss for the short 50 m "just moving the car" drive etc.
It helps, the world isn't white or black. Many people stops doing things because those things are illegal. Then I agree that there will always be some people doing the bad and some people doing the good regardless of the law.
phone usage is already illegal. Obvs more is necessary
That's a self-own if I ever saw one.
Banning stuff does stop it, see Hitler (existing) or horses on highways.
It's a real show of how much road safety discussion is fixated on lowering speed limits when you've just talked about how significant numbers of people are now not wearing seatbelts and the topic you move straight into is decreasing speed limits and driving more slowly instead of how to increase the number of people wearing seatbelts...
I can’t believe the amount of people who are arguing over this.
If you are in control of 1.5 tonnes of something travelling at 60km/h you should;
- concentrate on what you are doing, exclusively!
- not get into physical argument with someone else in control of 1.5 tonnes of something.
If you are emotionally unable to leave your fucking phone alone, you shouldn’t be fucking driving!
Its a good thing everyone who shouldnt be driving can just decide to not drive and will not have their lives destroyed as a result!
No that is a problem with our society that we can do something about.
Unfortunately there are too many dinosaurs fighting for FrEeDoM and preventing any progress on Walkable Neighbourhoods.
is it the people who are currently old who are doing that? or is a system that creates people to perpetuate the system which does that?
You don’t have to be an old person to be regressive.
In my opinion, the people with the most world experience have always been the most progressive. It is a shame that The Silent Generation were not able to pass on their knowledge and experience to the current batch of misguided Millennials, Gen Y, Gen X and boomers who want things to be like they were in “The Old Days”, even though they don’t know how terrible “The Old Days” actually were.
My point was generations are not a viable way of expressing political issues, it’s capitalism the system not the dudes in charge
For sure, but also phone have been deliberately engineered on the hardware and software level to be as addicting and habit forming as possible.
From attention grabbing chimes (not insane, you want to know when you're messaged normally) to notification spam to superstimuli applications. We need to shift some responsibility on manufacturers for exploiting holes in human psychology.
Anti litter campaigns get you so far, putting bins everywhere gets you further. Work safety videos get you so far, lock out tag out systems take you further
Clickbait, no new info here. Driving the old "reduce speed limits" rhetoric again. As cars get safer speeds should be going up, especially on long roads where fatigue is the biggest cause of crashes
As cars get safer speeds should be going up
Unfortunately, cars are getting less safe, not safer.
For other road users, anyway.
By your reasoning we would lose all safety improvements and maintain the unsatisfactory level of safety we have now
Implying increasing speed increases deaths? This has been studied to death, increasing speed limits on long roads would reduce deaths. No need to make a strawman
Interesting points but the risk from collisions (often due to human error) need to be accounted for. Furthermore, not everyone drives a car from the last 5 years, not many can afford it. There's still heaps of old Toyota Hilux(s) out there from the 1990's and early 2000's, and I've seen trucks still getting around from at least the 1980's. ABS is a great safety feature but drivers need to know how to effectively use it and actually have a vehicle that has it.
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From https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/nrss/fact-sheets/movement-and-place-approach
There's an accumulating decrease in crashes due to
A) less time on road
B) compounded with less fatigue
I'm on mobile so I can't pull studies up rn
"road toll remains flat"
Fails to account for increasing population
We should start by having all learner drivers go through proper driving school taught by proper licensed instructors. Allowing a family member do the teaching just invites bad / dangerous habits to be taught / learned.
