Nearly 1 In 4 Adults Surf the Web While Driving

cartechboy writes "A new survey out this week says that the number of motorists who surf the Web has nearly doubled over the past four years. In 2009, 13 percent of motorists admitted that they'd accessed the Internet while driving. In 2013, that figure had jumped to 24 percent. Smartphones are the primary culprit, making the unsafe task even easier. Other distracted driving behavior is on the rise, too, and younger drivers are the biggest issue — 76 percent of motorists 18 to 29 said that they talked on a hand-held cell phone while driving. 70 percent said they were texting. Keep in mind we have states legislating smartphone use task by task, which clearly doesn't help."

Comments

I do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC for legal reasons...

I've been doing this since I got a smart phone in 2008. No accidents so far so maybe it's not that dangerous (or I'm really lucky?). Stop and go traffic and traffic lights are a good time to check Slashdot.

Re:I do this

[lgw]

Just wait till you get there. Seriously. You never need to send a text while driving, you just have such amazingly low willpower that you recklessly endanger others, and don't even get anything out of it.

It is simply not acceptable, and you should stop doing this immediately, and feel shame that you ever did.

Re:I do this

[snowraver1]

set it to a collision that's double the actual speed they were driving while caught texting. (In other words, head-on collision with another vehicle doing the same speed

Actually, that is false. A head on collision with a vehicle of the same mass would be no different than the indestructible brick wall. Yes, when you add a second vehicle to the mix, you are doubling the amount of moving mass, but the absolute speed remains constant. In the end, the delta V is the same in both scenarios: X to 0. Now that we know that the delta V is the same, we just have to account for the deceleration rate, which is basically the same as the duration of the impact (crumple zones and all that). Since we have identical cars, they will deform at the same rate, acting as each others' brick wall. Once they collide, they would be exerting identical force on each other, so the front bumpers would remain in the same location, just like the brick wall. Since the front of your car can no longer move forward, the collision happens, and the body of your car absorbs the energy required to decelerate to 0. The energy released when two cars collide is doubled, but it is also spread over twice the area (ie, now you have 2 wrecked cars).

Misleading Statistics

[neonv]

the number of motorists who access the internet (e.g. check email, surf websites, etc.) has nearly doubled over the past four years

This statement implies these people access the internet regularly. However, that's not the question they asked.

13 percent of motorists admitted that they'd accessed the internet while driving

This statement says motorists have accessed the internet at all, meaning at least one time ever in your life, not on a regular basis.

This is a very important distinction that the article glosses over. If I accessed the internet on my phone once 5 years ago, then this survey would call me "one who accesses the internet while driving," which is very misleading. I don't access the internet while driving. The survey should ask something like "have you accessed the internet while driving in the last month." Then the data would be reasonable and give a much better representation of what people do.

Actually did this once ...

[oneiros27]

Well, I wasn't driving at the same time.

We had outfitted our chase van for the 1995 SunRayce, and had gotten Bell Atlantic (might've been Bell Atlantic-NYNEX at that point) to donate a car phone plus some coverage ... and we got a phone that had an RJ11 plug on it.

So ... we did some tests in the DC area before heading out to the race. The only place we could hold a decent connection (9600 baud ... that was pretty good for the days of 33.6k modems, considering we were on an analog cell phone) was along the BW Parkway ... near the NSA.

Which is retrospect seems kinda strange, now that they don't want any portable electronic devices going into secured places. (unless of course it was a rogue cell tower trying to specifically get people from the NSA to route through them)

You also get lots of strange looks from people when driving through Georgetown in a large white van w/ tinted windows and a half dozen antennas on the roof. (GPS, cell phone, 2 xUHF,2 x CB, radio modem (to talk to the solar car), etc.)

ps. by 'browsed the internet' I mean 'FTPed some files'. We might've used gopher, too.