Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

I don't know why this is bothering me...

But does anyone know why the title wasn't: "largest spike in..." As opposed to "biggest spike in..."?

> 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an uneventfully featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads

This is true. 95% of the time, it would be just as safe to be cruising at 90 mph. But for those other 5% where there's an unexpected tire in the middle of the road, a deer, a driver who swerved into your lane or any other danger... a few extra milliseconds to react and respond is what makes the difference between a close call and severe damage.

This means driving is condemned to be a mostly boring activity, and in our present age where boredom is to be avoided at all costs, it becomes a magnet for distractions.

One solution is to drive a vehicle that requires more immersion: a stick shift car, a convertible, a jeep, a motorcycle, etc. These are vehicles which let you feel the road.

'Driving' in Los Angeles is totally different. You dont need all your faculties when driving consists of waiting 2 minutes, let foot off brake for 30 seconds, put foot back on brake, repeat 100x. Otherwise, I completely agree. I've owned manual shift cars my whole life. I find that a number of drivers dont really understand how a car and basic physics works.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I would blow my brains out if I didnt have my smartphone to distract me. When you' re driving, everything can be a distraction depending on the ability of the driver. Billboards, eating, applying makeup, smoking, changing the radio and 100's of other different things all can do that. Why pass a smartphones ban, especially since were moving towards a world where most people would get lost driving to their grocery store without gps? It's just an easy, kneejerk response and doesnt solve the real issue.

We have way too low a threshold for who counts as a licensed driver. People who can't parallel park, never use their signals, people who get caught in intersections at a red light, dont look before merging or changing lanes, changing 4 lanes at once to make the exit, elderly people who get their license auto-renewed, etc. The hard truth is that there are far too many people on the road in 2 ton missiles who shouldn't have a license in the first place. One driving test for 10 minutes is not a sufficient way to license a driver.

Off-topic: I'm also amazed at how many people are clamoring for personal driving to be banned once self-driving cars hit the road. Granted, it does solve a lot of the issues I raised above but, if you want to be alpha testers for a closed source product written by software engineers in the auto industry, go right ahead. This is an industry where a company lied about the emissions of their products for years. Since cars can be on the roads for 20+ years, they had to know eventually they would be caught, but they didnt care. No one is in jail and the threat of a fine wasnt a deterrant. And now people implictly trust them with a new technology?

Im going to wait on owning one until an auto company open sources their code and there has been enough time to examine it thoroughly. In short, bring on the self-driving cars but do not make them mandatory. Just make licensing much more strict.

Far more terrifying are the ones you can't see doing it due to handsfree.

Even better is what I'm increasingly seeing in states that have made texting/hands-on phone use illegal. Of course people still do it - except now they hold the phone down low so they don't get caught. Of course, that means that they can't keep the road in line of sight for however long it takes to finish their business.

Best of all [1]: in cases where this leads to an accident, phones are hidden more quickly than they were since usage is against the law - which means phone usage will get underreported in accidents. That'll create a nice echo effect where it looks like the law is helping. The apparent number of phone-related accidents will drop - while total incidents will remain the same or increase.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4001674/ - or so some of the numbers here can be interpreted. As the authors repeatedly point out, though - there are so many variables that it's difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions.

The article fails to provide any statistics to show that apps are the cause. It just publishes a few case reports where apps were involved in an accident, and notes an uptick in traffic fatalities.

I think apps have reduced my chance of causing a traffic death:

My cognitive load for driving is much less than it used to be.

I no longer need to scan my environment for street signs, store signs or exit signs. I never need to look at a physical map/notes. If I miss a turn/exit, I'll recover. I don't have to suddenly shift lanes because I'll be in the correct lane a kilometer or two before the actual exit. Confusing signs telling me which lane to use are a non-issue.

I'll also drive fewer kilometers because of optimized routing. Sometimes it's more, but that's because I'll be diverting around congestion. I can also wait out the traffic and know exactly when to leave at a time that has fewer cars on the road.

Music streaming apps mean I don't have to fumble through radio stations, or clunky physical media.