Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

blog.zendrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 293 posts

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#241

Post by everly »

kibibu wrote: post #142
everly wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Might just be me, but I don't think it's appropriate to pull a camera out at the urinal

Hmm, I've never heard anyone hold this viewpoint in person and I've certainly used my phone at the urinal (and seen countless others do the same) enough times that I think it'd have come up.

I don't mean to say it's not a valid concern, I just think that it can be done in a way which makes it clear that one is not doing anything weird.

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#242

Post by saila »

Alupis wrote: post #221
megy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be an instant ban from driving, you are not allowed to continue your journey, and for at least a week after. Plus fine. It is ridiculous how lenient the laws are. 40,000 people die every year on our roads.

> 40,000 people die every year on our roads. We're largely talking about only the US market here -- in which only (and I say that word relatively) 37,000 people died in any sort of automobile related accident last year. To put this in perspective, the common Flu (a totally vaccinatable, preventable, and treatable illness) killed about 52,000 people in the US last year alone. According to the CDC, in 2016, 10,497 peop…

Beyond the number of people killed--which is atrocious no matter how you try to downplay it--there are something like 2 million more people who are injured every year. I find it problematic that that's rarely mentioned, because the "30 to 40 thousand killed every year" figure makes the problem seem smaller than it is and makes it easier for some people to dismiss the scale of the problem.

There's injuries that never fully heal, trauma, lost wages, loss of a vehicle in some cases, the tremendous waste of resources from unnecessary repairs, etc, all from something that's mostly preventable (very few traffic collisions are true accidents).

Also, the comment you're responding to doesn't say anything about bicyclists, and I don't see anyone in this thread "pretending" they're blameless. And they yearly flu vaccines have a certain rate of effectiveness, which is somewhat less than 100% (the CDC says 40 to 60%).

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#243

Post by plmpsu »

Schwolop wrote: post #240
wcarron wrote: post #164

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…

I'm a motorcyclist as well, and I've often wondered about trying to pitch a vigilante hardware product to our police force. I'd build a product around a button that when pressed marks the previous 15s plus the next 15s of helmet-cam footage as a candidate, then uploads that somewhere when the camera is next being charged. If the police would accept a clear camera recording of a numberplate plus a person using their p…

Israel has this kind of pilot governmental program in place:

https://www.rsa.org.il

(Hebrew)

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#244

Post by aembleton »

phil248 wrote: post #99
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

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?

There are a million legit reasons a person would need to use their phone while driving a car. But for some bizarre reason, most drivers find it unthinkable to simply pull over for 2 minutes to handle their business. If I need to fiddle with a map or respond to a text, I pull over. It's really super ridiculously easy to do and takes almost no time at all.

Are you allowed to pull over on the highway in the US. Certainly can't do that on a motorway in the UK.

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#245

Post by aembleton »

yardie wrote: post #12

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,…

Couldn't you just phone them and leave a voicemail? Use your cars bluetooth so you don't need to touch the phone.

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#246

Post by aembleton »

tlynchpin wrote: post #88

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 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.

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

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#247

Post by de_watcher »

kibibu wrote: post #142
everly wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Might just be me, but I don't think it's appropriate to pull a camera out at the urinal

It's more appropriate to compare the photos rather than the actual things.

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#248

Post by dagw »

sbov wrote: post #146
whymsicalburito wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's dangerous!! Figure out where you're going before driving off! If you get lost PULL OVER! It's really not that difficult and it shows that you actually care about people in the world other than yourself.

I have an issue with most of the defenses of using a phone while driving, but are you saying we should not be able to use a dashboard mounted phone as a GPS unit? Should all dashboard mounted GPS units be illegal, or just phone as a GPS? The advice was literally to keep the phone in your pocket.

Having a dashboard mounted phone as a GPS unit is fine, interacting with it any way other than briefly looking at it is not.

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#249

Post by dasKrokodil »

alexktz wrote: post #214
wcarron wrote: post #164

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…

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…

What is lane surfing?

Re: Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers

#250

Post by underwater »

rconti wrote: post #101
sxates wrote: post #75

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…

I do the former, but not the latter. Turns out, one of them is dangerous.

But why? When I see people doing this I figure they have zero self control. How had is it to put the phone away for 30 seconds?
Post reply on HN