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Distracted Driving: Everyone Hates It, But Most of Us Do It, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Insurance company Esurance has a new study out on distracted driving, and it makes for interesting reading. Almost everyone agrees distracted driving is bad, yet it's still remarkably prevalent. Even drivers who report rarely driving distracted also report that they engage in distracting behaviors. The study also raises some questions about the growing complexity of modern vehicles, particularly the user interfaces they confront us with. The Esurance report includes survey data from more than a thousand participants. More than 90 percent said that browsing for apps, texting, and emailing were distracting. Yet more than half of daily commuters admitted to doing it. The survey also found that the longer your commute, the greater the chance is you'll get distracted, probably by your phone. Even participants who reported they were "rarely distracted" admitted to distracting behavior like talking on the phone or even viewing GPS Navigation data. (Any task performed while driving should be able to be performed in under two seconds to avoid becoming a distraction.)
I can't speak for Washington State, but in British Columbia it is against the law to use a handheld device while stopped at a traffic light (or in a traffic jam).
A large number of tickets are given out to drivers using their devices while at stop lights.
They have a neat way of spotting them. Look for someone waving an advertising sign that has no company name on it. Drivers universally ignore such people, and when the pull up at the light, the sign guy radios the cop halfway down the next block to pull them over.
Just because other people do other more or less stupid things while driving doesn't make using your phone any smarter. If you use a headset then at least you're keeping your eyes free to watch the road.
But by now we've all been on the road the day everyone is dodging around someone who's weaving between lanes, or going half the speed limit - any when it's finally your turn to go around the car, sure enough the driver has a phone in their face. There are plenty of ways to die in this world, but if I get taken out by someone who thinks their email is more important than my life, I hope I can haunt them for eternity.