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Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

nytimes.com

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Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#61

Post by ux-app »

m3rc wrote: post #34
niftich wrote: post #29

Apps are a plausible contributor. But I also noticed that some new cars ship with infotainment systems that consist solely of a (bad) touchscreen; as new cars slowly replace old ones, the number of cars with actual physical buttons for the music player or radio is dwindling. This is awful because the lack of physical buttons prevents the tactile feedback needed to operate the device without having to look at it. Luck…

I can't stand touchscreen systems. Instead of a single physical switch to turn AC on or off it's two latency laden taps. Part of it's menu design but I can't help but feel like it's always gonna happen with touchscreen centric designs.

That's poor design. My wife's new car has physical buttons for all the common functions that you might require to use while in motion:

- Radio on/off

- All radio controls on the wheel

- Heating/cooling, physical knobs

The touchscreen is treated as an optional, secondary interface, as it rightfully should be.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#62

Post by embiggen »

Scoundreller wrote: post #59

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 ne…

Polar Opposite of other parent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12964329

Both purport situational awareness" to have vastly different consequences and effects.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#63

Post by bbarn »

niftich wrote: post #50
bbarn wrote: post #21

I'm of the belief that while phones have contributed, it's just not hard enough to drive anymore. Try driving a manual shift, non power steering vehicle some time and using your phone. That's the world the roads were built for, not this ultra easy, power assisted, auto-speed control, auto-lane control world where you don't even feel the speed difference between 60 and 90. I used to hear people say they couldn't drive…

In all fairness, the 65-70 mph posted on most rural interstates is usually an uneventfully featureless speed, on uneventful, featureless roads. Meanwhile the urban grandfathered interstates are like NASCAR with a concrete wall to one side, and ruthless traffic inches to your side. And even sometimes on a suburban parkway signed for 45, with four lanes going the same way, you fear for your life as SUVs heading home fr…

>This isn't misplaced nostalgia for the days when driving was more dangerous, but I do believe as cars get safer, situational awareness worsens and riskier behaviors are less likely to result in serious accidents -- so some drivers continue to take more risks.

You put this into words better than I did. I'm not suggesting we abandon all the improvements we've gotten in the last 30 years, just recognize how less effort required can breed disassociation with the task at hand.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#64

Post by bbarn »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #55
bbarn wrote: post #21

I'm of the belief that while phones have contributed, it's just not hard enough to drive anymore. Try driving a manual shift, non power steering vehicle some time and using your phone. That's the world the roads were built for, not this ultra easy, power assisted, auto-speed control, auto-lane control world where you don't even feel the speed difference between 60 and 90. I used to hear people say they couldn't drive…

'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 brain…

>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.

At some point, we'll need to hold people to the same standard as the machines, and then.. when most people can't, we make it mandatory.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#65

Post by apsec112 »

Headline: "Blame Apps"

Evidence given in the article:

- "Safety experts say" that it's true. The experts are not named or quoted. No evidence or reasoning is given to support the claim.

- Highway fatalities are up this year. However, they're still significantly down from 2007, when the iPhone was first introduced. Mobile has been booming for almost a decade - if we should "blame apps", why hasn't it been a concern before now?

- One driver who caused a fatal accident was using Snapchat shortly before the crash. This driver was also going at 115 mph. It goes without saying, therefore, that Snapchat is to blame, not speeding or general recklessness.

- "Insurance companies are convinced", according to one Robert Gordon. Gordon is actually named and quoted. However, the quote again doesn't provide evidence or reasoning.

Maybe it is actually true. I don't know. However, the evidence given is nowhere near strong enough to be convincing. There's also the issue that newspapers are direct competitors with the apps they're railing against (for ad dollars), and have been losing badly: http://charman-anderson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/newsp....

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#66

Post by wvenable »

edgyswingset wrote: post #56
bigethan wrote: post #49

As a cyclist in SF, Uber/Lyft drivers are the most dangerous thing going. They're driving by staring at their phone's map for directions and pickup/dropoff. Once they stop, they stare at their phone for the next ride. Very little situational awareness. It'd be nice if there was some sort of way for them to indicate they drive erratically. Perhaps by painting their cars all yellow or something...

My one and only experience using Uber was with a driver who had no clue where anything was, clearly wasn't from around the place, and from what I could tell violated two traffic laws. So what do I do, give him a bad rating? No, because this person probably needed the money, and a rating under 4.5 gets you shitcanned in an already rigged system. Quite the revolution indeed.

Isn't that the point of the rating system? I don't want to be killed by my next Uber ride because you feel bad rating them appropriately.

I've never had a bad Uber experience but I have had some downright frightening cab rides and I'd love to be able to rate that.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#67

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

Incredibly misleading title/premise.

Should be titled: "Traffic deaths slightly spike, but remain lower than 2008 or any other year after 1956."

It has increased slightly since 2011, but less than 10%. What we might be seeing is that vehicle deaths has plateaued. We kept seeing decreases because technology kept being introduced (e.g. seat belts, air bags, ABS brakes, crumple zones, partial overlap resistance, safety cages, better safety testing, etc). That kind of slowed at the end of the 2000s and is now picking up again (e.g. automatic braking, lane keep assist, blind spot warning, cross traffic alert, backup cameras, full automation, etc).

The whole article is trying to manufacture a story out of statistical noise. We'd need more data (more years) to even start to speculate on an actual increase in deaths.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#68

Post by frakr »

bigethan wrote: post #49

As a cyclist in SF, Uber/Lyft drivers are the most dangerous thing going. They're driving by staring at their phone's map for directions and pickup/dropoff. Once they stop, they stare at their phone for the next ride. Very little situational awareness. It'd be nice if there was some sort of way for them to indicate they drive erratically. Perhaps by painting their cars all yellow or something...

It's also a bit worrisome that the driver apps only give the driver ~30 seconds to accept a new ride request. The requests almost always come in while they are driving.

Drivers are forced to pay attention to their phone and try to figure out if they want to accept the ride, all while driving. It's incredibly distracting and they never have enough time to pull over and safely accept the request.

This puts the driver as well as everyone else on the road at risk for no reason other than some arbitrary response time for ride requests.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#69

Post by ajmurmann »

will_brown wrote: post #58
bigethan wrote: post #49

As a cyclist in SF, Uber/Lyft drivers are the most dangerous thing going. They're driving by staring at their phone's map for directions and pickup/dropoff. Once they stop, they stare at their phone for the next ride. Very little situational awareness. It'd be nice if there was some sort of way for them to indicate they drive erratically. Perhaps by painting their cars all yellow or something...

Whether I am running or driving if I see a driver making dangerous u-turns or 3-point turns as of late it is always an Uber driver. I always joke on a run it's normal to almost be hit by cars multiple time and typically it is by the same Uber driver. Just last night I am running thru a crosswalk (w/signal) and a car makes a left into the crosswalk almost hitting the first time, this street has no sidewalk so I am run…

Or maybe we could give drivers tickets for that kinda stuff instead of almost exclusively giving tickets for speeding which I especially on the freeway believe to be a comparatively small problem.

Re: Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps

#70

Post by megablast »

edgyswingset wrote: post #56
bigethan wrote: post #49

As a cyclist in SF, Uber/Lyft drivers are the most dangerous thing going. They're driving by staring at their phone's map for directions and pickup/dropoff. Once they stop, they stare at their phone for the next ride. Very little situational awareness. It'd be nice if there was some sort of way for them to indicate they drive erratically. Perhaps by painting their cars all yellow or something...

My one and only experience using Uber was with a driver who had no clue where anything was, clearly wasn't from around the place, and from what I could tell violated two traffic laws. So what do I do, give him a bad rating? No, because this person probably needed the money, and a rating under 4.5 gets you shitcanned in an already rigged system. Quite the revolution indeed.

Oh well, as long as you get a cheap ride, who cares if the asshole can't drive and doesn't care about other road users.
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