Drunk or staring at a phone? a new highway game

[zank]

It's getting f--king maddening. Not just on the highway of course. Weaving, slowing down, speeding up, driving dangerously slow. Some keep it in their lap. Some hold it up in plain sight. When is this shit going to stop? I know. Never. F--k me.

So angry right now.

[zetroc]

Every single day I see at least 3 people driving and staring at their phones. It's almost enough to make me ride exclusively on dirt. Almost.

[jesseth]

We are going to look back on this as a very weird time. The computers were just smart enough to be more interesting than driving, but not quite smart enough to drive themselves.

It took the arrival of magic entertainment machines in our pockets to realize just how incredibly boring driving a car is.

[Christian Fox]

When I go into my office, I walk to the deli for breakfast. It's maybe a 1/3 of a mile walk, takes about 5 minutes. In that time I can count on seeing 3 to 4 morons staring at their stupid fucking phones while driving down a very busy street. And that's every day. Extrapolate that and the numbers are staggering. It's just like bullying; you can't imagine the time and effort they spend in schools preaching anti-bullying to kids these days and it doesn't do shit. No amount of public service messages will do anything. Every idiot texting while driving knows what they are doing is wrong, but they just won't stop.

[Mabouya]

Obviously society doesn't care, because if as a whole we did, something would be done about it.

Enforcement got people to put on their seatbelts.

Enforcement can get folks to stop texting/whatever while driving.

[robin3mj]

Obviously society doesn't care, because if as a whole we did, something would be done about it.

Enforcement got people to put on their seatbelts.

Enforcement can get folks to stop texting/whatever while driving.

"Enforcement" doesn't even do jack shit about people driving through stop signs at full speed in my residential neighborhood. There is zero chance they will enforce the vagaries of who is driving distractedly due to being glued to an iPhone versus who is just a shitty driver anyway.

Nothing is going to happen until someone "influential" (Oprah? Rush? Taylor Swift?) loses a spouse/child to a texting driver and makes a pink ribbon cause of it.

[edoz]

Enforcement is just as guilty as the masses. Half the times I see a Tulsa cop drive by, they are on their phone.

[mnoble485]

I watched a guy walk into the back of a parked car and land on his ass while texting.Darwin won that one.

[Jonathan]

Enforcement is just as guilty as the masses. Half the times I see a Tulsa cop drive by, they are on their phone.

In Florida the no driving while using a handheld device law exempts law enforcement. Maddening.

[steve garro]

In Mexico driving while using a device is illegal, signs are all over, and it looks as if people actually stick to it.
- Garro.

[Mabouya]

If municipalities wanted to stamp this out they would jack up the fines for those found guilty, and the police department would have an incentive to stop folks to increase revenue.

The issue comes down to the convenience of the phones vs the damage they do. If every other mayor, chief of police, LEO and town councilor had a relative injured or killed by a texter you can be sure that something would be done. If it's just a few cyclists taken out every now and then, folks don't really care.

[mjbabcock]

The solutions to this problem are going to have to be technological, as the root of this problem is psychological. People are addicted to these devices both with respect to neurotransmitters and socially with respect to their behavioral norms. We are not going to be able to separate folks from their devices unless the devices refuse to interact (phones moving more than 4-mph could shut off). Knowing that folks won't accept a device that shuts down while in motion (see attempts at making the phones interact through the steering wheel or Bluetooth tech), the only hope is to get the cars to take over driving.

In a lot of instances I'd consider myself a Luddite. Unfortunately, I think people are too dumb to manage the tools we've created athis the same time. I only hope Google or tesla can figure it how to get these cars on the road before I get run over.

[Mabouya]

the only hope is to get the cars to take over driving

I bet that's at least 15-20 years away, if ever. (And I'm an engineer who makes his living working on high-tech stuff)

IMO it would be way, way, way easier to just give the idiots a $250 ticket every time they're caught doing it.

[busdriver1959]

Phones nowadays have very accurate time, updated by GPS signals. Require the computers in cars to have the same accuracy in their computer clocks. If cops could access the car computers to see when a sudden deceleration or airbag deployment occurred, compare that to phone usage records, charge triple damages for property damage that occurs while using the phone, jail time for injuries, BIG jail time for death, this sh!t would stop.

[Christian Fox]

I bet that's at least 15-20 years away, if ever. (And I'm an engineer who makes his living working on high-tech stuff)

IMO it would be way, way, way easier to just give the idiots a $250 ticket every time they're caught doing it.

Why so little? Honestly, $5,000 fine and 30 day mandatory suspended license would be a start. The penalty needs to be life changing, otherwise people will still do it. I mean, people will still do it and risk a $5,000 fine, but I really think severe penalties would cut down on it dramatically.

[Moke]

I think it is a way bigger problem than just driving. I don't have a smart phone so maybe I don't get it. But from my seat in life I see those things like crack. I have friends and coworkers that cannot not have the thing going off every 10 seconds or they start having to text or message other people to stimulate themselves. Sitting in a bar or at a meal with four people in todays world, it seems one of them is not in the game at any given moment because they are in communication with someone out of the group , I swear.
I think I am the only person I know that does not have their phone with them or within arms reach at any given time. In my view the whole world seems to have ADD. No one seems to be paying attention to any one thing for any period of time. Like while doing surgery you would think a doctor would not have to have the nurse hold the phone up to them or to text a message because they are scrubbed in and trying to save someones life.
I totally get it that having an instant map to help find a meal or the way home is a fantastic thing, but can't we just remember what we needed to look up until a more convenient time like 60% of the time?

[Mabouya]

The penalty needs to be life changing, otherwise people will still do it.

Wow, it must be pretty important to folks, if they'll still do it after a few $250 fines.

(I wouldn't know - I don't even have a dumb cell phone, let alone a smart one.)

[Mabouya]

from my seat in life I see those things like crack. I have friends and coworkers that cannot not have the thing going off every 10 seconds or they start having to text or message other people to stimulate themselves. Sitting in a bar or at a meal with four people in todays world, it seems one of them is not in the game at any given moment because they are in communication with someone out of the group , I swear

+1

These people need to get a life.

Imagine the mental torture, if they were on a 3-hour solo bike ride. To be alone with your thoughts all that time - impossible!

[Christian Fox]

Wow, it must be pretty important to folks, if they'll still do it after a few $250 fines.

(I wouldn't know - I don't even have a dumb cell phone, let alone a smart one.)

People risk jail time and still continue to drive drunk, a lot fewer than in the bad old days, but some still do it. I wouldn't think a $250 fine would deter anyone. Mandatory loss of license and the accompanying shame of your name in the police blotter? I think that would stop a lot of it.

[Peter Polack]

+1

These people need to get a life.

Imagine the mental torture, if they were on a 3-hour solo bike ride. To be alone with your thoughts all that time - impossible!

There is no mental torture. I've seen cyclists stop to answer their phone for routine calls while on a bike ride.

What changed? All of a sudden every "stop to answer" is justified that "it might be important" yet it virtually never is. I was working with a coworker on Friday. First his wife texted him AT WORK to tell him a coworker of hers suffered a possible heart attack and the ambulance was responding. Really? And it was necessary to tell your husband immediately? Later he fondled his phone as apparently his phone alerted him to "breaking news"; the Statue of Liberty was shut down. Mind you, we don't even WORK in New York state, let alone NYC, so was it important to be fed that info? When I called him on it I got the typical "kids, emergencies, blah blah blah...".

Granted, he wasn't driving at the time, but there are many others who are checking their phones for similar unimportant messages while they're driving, sometimes with deadly consequences.