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Smartphones Are Killing Americans, But Nobody's Counting (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: Over the past two years, after decades of declining deaths on the road, U.S. traffic fatalities surged by 14.4 percent. In 2016 alone, more than 100 people died every day in or near vehicles in America, the first time the country has passed that grim toll in a decade. Regulators, meanwhile, still have no good idea why crash-related deaths are spiking: People are driving longer distances but not tremendously so; total miles were up just 2.2 percent last year. Collectively, we seemed to be speeding and drinking a little more, but not much more than usual. Together, experts say these upticks don't explain the surge in road deaths. There are however three big clues, and they don't rest along the highway. One, as you may have guessed, is the substantial increase in smartphone use by U.S. drivers as they drive. From 2014 to 2016, the share of Americans who owned an iPhone, Android phone, or something comparable rose from 75 percent to 81 percent. The second is the changing way in which Americans use their phones while they drive. These days, we're pretty much done talking. Texting, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are the order of the day -- all activities that require far more attention than simply holding a gadget to your ear or responding to a disembodied voice. By 2015, almost 70 percent of Americans were using their phones to share photos and follow news events via social media. In just two additional years, that figure has jumped to 80 percent.
We just made using a phone while driving illegal in Texas... Didn't passing a law fix this?
Wha? You mean people don't obey laws?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If every car had by default some good way to mount a cell phone there would not be nearly so much distraction, since you could see the road and not have eyes diverted to the side for notifications or what have you.
But I am pretty sure car makers do not want your eyes to have any competition from the crappy entertainment consoles they build in, so they provide no good way to view phones which 99% of people would prefer to use for directions and the like.
That's another factor the article seems to not consider at all - how much does relying on GPS directions which can be confusing and mean many more sudden movements from divers play into increased traffic incidents? Again a problem reduced quite a lot by having a phone holder in line with your view of the road.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What we need is more driver assistance tools: autopilot, collision detection, lane assist. There's money in it , it appeals to the laziness of the drivers, and allows to take control away from the drivers. What's not to like.
we can have the conversation about how road deaths have consistently not tracked cell phone use over many years and there is pretty much no solid statistical evidence that phones increase accidents. They certainly contribute to some accidents, but that's very different to them contributing to higher accident rates. It's entirely possible that map applications reduce accidents by causing people to drive less and to know where they are going to turn before they get there.
Why, when road deaths increase are people quick to blame cell phones? If road deaths go both up and down while cell phone use goes in one direction, that's evidence that they are not directly linked. What about other likely culprits like shorter yellow times at traffic lights? Increased use of speed and intersection cameras causing people to suddenly brake? An increase in politically infuriating radio shows?
People have simplistic minds and no clue about statistical inference.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
If every car had by default some good way to mount a cell phone there would not be nearly so much distraction, since you could see the road and not have eyes diverted to the side for notifications or what have you.
There have been numerous studies showing that mounting the phone or even having hands free operation still results in unacceptable levels of distracted driving. And having a mount doesn't force people to use it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again even though it's not popular. The ONLY way to eliminate the problem is for the smartphones to utilize their tracking abilities and to cease most functioning aside from a few items like 911 calls and GPS when it shows you to be in a car traveling down a road. Since it is impossible to determine who the driver is then it would have to apply to everyone. Yes this will limit passengers use too and that's simply going to have to be a trade off to be made for safety. Exceptions can be made for properly designated first responders. There is no other technology nor any law that I'm aware of that will otherwise adequately mitigate the problem. If you have a better idea I'm all ears but as draconian as it sounds I think it's the only way to force people to be safer.
There's a big problem with 'people' in general - they won't learn any lesson you want to teach them, as a population, no matter how simple, or stupid the thing you're trying to correct.
At a basic psychological level, we sometimes get the urge to correct them at large - a lot of road rage is effectively this, where you try and interfere with a rude driver to 'teach them a lesson'. It virtually never actually works.
You can't fix phone-use deaths by telling people it's bad, or showing them the effects of how distracting it is to functionally driving. If you try and implement technological features that make it annoying to use the phone while driving, most folks will disable this, taking great pains to do so.
It's not even that people think that they're immune to distraction, or even that they don't think it's dangerous - folks just don't like driving, and they like/need their phones, and even with death and huge fines as consequences, they'll do the 'bad thing' on statistically overwhelming scale.
The better fix is to automate driving so that folks can do most anything and not have that be a safety factor.
Ryan Fenton
We've also had a steady rise in the complexity and abundance of infotainment systems that needlessly complicate the few tasks you legitimately need to attend to while driving.
Tactile knobs have been replaced with menus and buttons to adjust the temperature. I can't use feel and peripheral vision like on my old car to adjust heat, vents, or volume. Worse yet, the buttons that remain are a smooth surface that I can't even make out without looking at them. Form over function.
AAA has shed some light on this as of late, but until car makers reverse course, it is just going to get worse and worse.
The very title says, "nobody's counting" — how do we know, it is the smartphones, that are to blame and not any of the other things, which we aren't counting either? Like illegal immigrants driving (whether or not they do in substantial numbers is unknown), or relaxed rules for obtaining a license, or increase in speed limits, or even smart-phone use by the pedestrians (victims) themselves?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Don't care if they kill themselves, it's when they hurt others that we have a problem.
We've done a great job of reducing risk to manageable levels.
However, reducing risk to zero is unnecessary and astoundingly Orweillein. Stupid people dying is a fact of life and keeping them from killing themselves especially in this day and age of padded safe everything is probably not the best course of action.
Your observation would be relevant, if not for the innocent smart people being harmed and killed.
Guns are more dangerous than phones. Why all this concern over phones? Consider the essential purpose of each item. A gun is meant to kill. It should be banned. A phone is meant to help. It shouldn't be a concern.
Guns: 30,000+ deaths per year (22,000 of those deaths are due to suicide.)
Cars: 40,000+ deaths per year (and you do this activity every day.)
Alcohol: 80,000+ deaths per year.
Cigarettes: 400,000+ deaths per year.
Wake me when you're ready to start talking about banning the real killers.
It IS your fault if you are not allowing a safe following distance.
/s
Safe Following distance is 2 seconds + the average interval when you look up from your phone to glance at the road.
If you are not following the vehicle ahead to allow this much time to react, then it IS your fault.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I might have to switch sides on the gun control debate if you try to ban my alcohol.