To save you a click:
Mr White says part of the problem is there are still many public misunderstandings around phones and driving.
“A good example is the view that if you’re using a hands-free phone — if you’ve got it in a cradle — then that’s taking the risk away. And that’s not true,” he says.
“There’s plenty of scientific evidence that says the level of distraction, using a phone hands-free or hand-held, is exactly the same. It doesn’t change.”
But one of these is legal and the other is not, why is that?
Big Hands Free doesn’t like it when you ask questions.
The level of distraction is one thing, but the level of dexterity is different. It’s a lot easier to drive straight looking at a phone (or even interacting with one) that’s in a cradle.
How would you police it? Can’t know if someone is using their device if they’re not holding it, they could be singing to the radio or talking to themselves.
Wait, so with that mindset, it’s talking to your passenger an ever greater risk, as you might glance over at them while talking? I mean hands free phone seems like less of a distraction than a passenger, no?
I know intuitively this seems logical but research seems to suggest using hands-free devices while driving can actually be more distracting than talking to a passenger. The main reason is that you don’t have the same visual and verbal interaction with the phone, which can lead to cognitive distraction. Cognitive distraction is when your mind isn’t fully focused on the road, even if your eyes are on the road and your hands are on the wheel. A study from the University of Utah found that it takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands to a hands-free device. The study also showed that using hands-free voice commands to dial phone numbers, call contacts, change music, and send texts with personal assistants like Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri, and Google Now can be highly distracting.
Another study by the National Safety Council found that handheld and hands-free cell phone use causes similar levels of impairment in driving performance. Drivers using hands-free phones tend to “look at” but not “see” objects, experiencing inattention blindness, which is similar to tunnel vision. This can lead to drivers missing important visual cues critical to safety and navigation.
On the other hand, when you’re talking to a passenger, you have the advantage of visual and verbal interaction, which can help maintain your attention on the road. Passengers can also adjust their conversation based on the driving situation, whereas a hands-free device can’t.
So yeah, hands-free devices can be more distracting than talking to a passenger because of the lack of visual and verbal interaction and the cognitive distraction they cause.
University of Utah study on hands-free devices and cognitive distraction: Strayer, D. L., Cooper, J. M., Turrill, J., Coleman, J., Medeiros-Ward, N., & Biondi, F. (2015). Measuring Cognitive Distraction in the Automobile. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
National Safety Council study on handheld and hands-free cell phone use: National Safety Council. (2010). Understanding the Distracted Brain: Why Driving While Using Hands-Free Cell Phones is Risky Behavior.
Wait, you’re saying being visually engaged with my passager, meaning looking at them and not the road, helps me pay attention to the road more?
Also it takes 27 seconds to recover focus after saying “Hey Google, play some music.” I mean I’ll have to look at these studies but they seem suspicious. That’s nearly half a mile at 60 mph.
yeah i know it seems bizzare I agree, however fwiw that’s what the science seems to indicate.
The seatbelt people can kill themselves off, nothing to worry about there. Mobile phones definitely continue to be a big concern though. The number of people who are suspiciously glancing down at their lap every few seconds out on the road is pretty crazy.
I disagree with the first part of this take for a few reasons. Aside from not wanting people to die unnecessary, not wearing seat belts increases the chance of injury. If you’re injured in a car accident, someone is probably going to call an ambulance. There are only so many of those to go around so not wearing a seatbelt does impact others as well. That said we already have laws around that so not much more we can do.
I can’t believe the amount of people who are arguing over this.
If you are in control of 1.5 tonnes of something travelling at 60km/h you should;
- concentrate on what you are doing, exclusively!
- not get into physical argument with someone else in control of 1.5 tonnes of something.
If you are emotionally unable to leave your fucking phone alone, you shouldn’t be fucking driving!
For sure, but also phone have been deliberately engineered on the hardware and software level to be as addicting and habit forming as possible.
From attention grabbing chimes (not insane, you want to know when you’re messaged normally) to notification spam to superstimuli applications. We need to shift some responsibility on manufacturers for exploiting holes in human psychology.
Anti litter campaigns get you so far, putting bins everywhere gets you further. Work safety videos get you so far, lock out tag out systems take you further
The specific use of phones is barely discussed but worth doing so.
For example talking on a phone, or even in a car, is highly distracting and delays reactions. Passengers are generally more sensitive to context and weirdly somehow less distracting than phones. So that’s something important to consider.
Listening to the radio is slightly distracting, and likewise listening to the radio played through the phone with notifications off. Doing this is probably fine and we should design roads and cars around the idea that people will listen to music, or sing, or whatever.
Fiddling with the radio is extremely dangerous, I’m sure we’ve all been rear ended or nearly so by someone doing it, and probably had a couple of “oops shouldn’t have done that” moments ourselves. Likewise fiddling with phones.
The idea of banning all phone usage is a non starter, but we can probably introduce regulations like phones disabling certain features while cars are in motion but leaving them as useful for navigation and music etc.
phones disabling certain features while cars are in motion
A non-starter, unless it’s an option made available to the user in the way that “car mode” already is. You can’t just have it be automatic, because not everyone in a car is driving (even if the vast majority are). And if you were going purely on speed, you’d end up catching bus and train users too, which are almost entirely not driving.
I would love if it was disabled for everyone in my car. It is even pretty distracting when someone else (or more than one other person) is trying to have a conversion when I am driving, listening to music, audiobook or podcast.
Please shut the fuck up when I’m driving!
Phone calls are not the feature they would be most likely to disable. You’re more likely to have passengers talking to you with their phones stuck in “driving mode” as they can’t use them to quietly pass the time playing a game or reading or browsing social media or whatever else the driver shouldn’t be doing with their phone.
Mmm you can definitely do stuff with pairing to a car disabling notifications etc.
if you want to send a text unpair as a passenger.
Shaping behaviour isn’t about being flawless, it’s about raising the barriers to antisocial behaviour.
The fact of the matter is that if we want to use heavy machinery we need to be willing to accept some restrictions for safety. you can’t wear thongs in a machine shop and maybe you can’t browse the web with your phone paired to the car.
Shaping behaviour isn’t about being flawless
I absolutely agree, but I think there are different kinds of flaws. If it creates a mere 2% increase in safety, that’s perhaps worthwhile. But if it’s restricting people who shouldn’t be restricted, that’s a hard no from me. If it’s something as simple as clicking a button that says “I’m not driving”, I’m okay with that. But if it can’t be avoided at all as a passenger, it’s a complete non-starter. If it requires unpairing from the car, that’s a bit of a grey zone, but I’d personally lean towards “no”. Why can’t a passenger be the one to control the music (which must be the main reason to be paired to the car)? Surely that’s increasing safety compared to if the driver is trying to do it?
Dude that’s fucking nonsense.
Just lay out what you’re saying and like really think through the consequences.
unpairing for a second to check a fact on Wikipedia or whatever isn’t a massive imposition. I’m not even attached to that, it’s just an example. It’s not like passengers wouldn’t control music and drivers would if you had to unpair to Google the year a song came out.
Anyway setting imaginary specifics aside your argument, taken at face value, would imply all sorts of regulations nobody actually wants rolled back except teenaged libertarians (no shade, I was also stupid once. it happens.).
Dude that’s fucking nonsense.
Dude chill the fuck out. No, it’s not. Your position is so extreme it’s going to result in zero compliance, because yes, it is a pretty big imposition. It’s a ridiculous idea. Like seriously.
Lay out what you’re saying and like really think through the consequences. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if a passenger had to unpair their phone every single time they want to send a text message or Google something. It’s a laughable idea.
it’s a button press.
If I’m a passenger when my brother’s driving, I’m probably on my phone most of the time and using my phone for the car’s music, for example. Such a restriction would simply mean my brother would be doing the music while driving.
please keep it polite.
I expect cars in the future will have driver monitoring checking if the driver is sleepy, distracted, etc and will sound a warning.
I think android/ios should do a better job at making distraction free car-modes that only shows navigation and reads out text messages, etc.
Don’t come the raw prawn I’m being plenty polite. At least by Aussie standards. What they said is nonsense, not them. I’m sure they’re a reasonable person afk. We all get a bit of brain damage once we start typing haha.
I expect cars of the future to not exist given they’re poisoning the world, killing us, and destroying our urban environments but I admit to being an eternal optimist. I like driving, well riding anyway (before I became too crippled), but it’s not something we’re very good at and cars are ludicrious machines for what they’re used for. Like driving a tank to pin up a poster haha.
I’m being plenty polite. At least by Aussie standards.
We do have standards here and calling someone’s comment “fucking nonsense” nears the line, even if it is indeed “fucking nonsense”. I don’t know what part of Australia you’re from but in South-East Queensland that isn’t polite
My car requires you to be in park to pair /unpair at least initially. It’s several steps to pair /unpair after that. Because it’s complicated, if I’m driving a passenger, I end up doing it for them even though I’m driving. Maybe you’re thinking of a whole new system, but calling op stupid and unthinking is short-sighted on your part.
Just turn Bluetooth on your phone off?
I have mine set to go to Airplane mode when it pairs to my car’s Bluetooth.
It stops me being distracted by calls but allows me to listen to my music.
Your airplane mode keeps running the Bluetooth radio?
Yep, if it connects to an external audio device first - sometimes it does connect but then disconnect, but usually it works without issue!
introduce regulations like phones disabling certain features while cars are in motion but leaving them as useful for navigation and music etc.
my phone spotify goes into ‘car mode’ when driving, which is even more of a distraction to me, where the usual app i can operate almost in my sleep, the different layout means it takes me more concentration how to figure out how to change songs or whatever, despite all the icons being bigger and technically ‘easier’ to use.
not that im encouraging using it at all when in the car, im guilty and im sure a lot of people are too, but theres an example where the attempt to make something safer in my case actually made it more dangerous
sure, and people have made braking assist programs that are hypersensitive and get disabled.
Exactly because people going it alone make arse decisions is why guidlines and regulations would be a good thing to have.
In Italy whatever active use of a phone is banned already by the law. If an officer sees you with a phone they can stop you and issue a fine. Stil its not enforced enough
banning stuff doesn’t stop it. see tax evasion or fascism
Yeah. Shouldn’t even bother with laws against murder. Doesn’t stop people killing each other.
It helps, the world isn’t white or black. Many people stops doing things because those things are illegal. Then I agree that there will always be some people doing the bad and some people doing the good regardless of the law.
phone usage is already illegal. Obvs more is necessary
Banning stuff does stop it, see Hitler (existing) or horses on highways.
It’s a real show of how much road safety discussion is fixated on lowering speed limits when you’ve just talked about how significant numbers of people are now not wearing seatbelts and the topic you move straight into is decreasing speed limits and driving more slowly instead of how to increase the number of people wearing seatbelts…
We should start by having all learner drivers go through proper driving school taught by proper licensed instructors. Allowing a family member do the teaching just invites bad / dangerous habits to be taught / learned.
In Victoria I’d be amazed if the terrible state of our road surfaces aren’t a contributing factor, particularly regionally. There’s a backlog of work that runs back before COVID because of changes to road maintenance funding and staffing.
The other grim factor is that with our mental health crisis, cost of living pressures etc. not all single vehicle accidents without seatbelts will be accidental.
There’s also been a lot of substandard materials used by DoT contractors post Covid, which means that the project supervisors also really have to keep an eye on things as well
However all the good regional supervisors at the DoT have gone into consultancy, leaving their regional offices staffed with a lot of graduates.
I’m also going to say that intersection design is also a bigger factor than road surfaces. Especially as a now banned optical illusion causing intersection style is still rife across the regions. Drivers on the side road think that the intersection is a roundabout. But in fact they need to yield to the main road.
The Chiltern quadruple fatality was caused at one such intersection, and it’s quite easy to see how the intersection can be perceived as a roundabout.
We’re not gonna have the resources to replace every intersection. However it’s almost negligent leaving that style of intersection on the main alternative route into Chiltern.
Damn. It looks really scary. 100% looks like roundabout, I would yeld to “give way” but it cost me some moment to realise that I need to yeld for any car.
“road toll remains flat”
Fails to account for increasing population
The solution is not to chide people. Their behaviour is not gonna change. The solution is to urban plan the need for car use away for most people. Less urban sprawl. More urban centers. More medium-density housing. Better public transport. You name it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
They would take hours to clean and suture," says Dr Crozier, who is a former head of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ National Trauma Committee.
But a coalition of different parties was pushing for change — including many in the medical profession, like trauma surgeons who were witnessing the devastation firsthand.
“There were get-out clauses,” says Mark King, an adjunct professor at QUT’s Centre for Road Safety and Accident Research.
Terry Slevin, the CEO of the Public Health Association of Australia, says pubs and clubs argued random breath testing was “anti-business”.
In 1982, for example, the NSW Australian Hotels Association president Barry McInerney called random breath testing “an imposition on the working class”.
David Cliff, a former police officer and CEO of the Global Road Safety Partnership, says while it’s not always popular, cutting speed limits has the ability to save lives in both regional and metropolitan Australia.
The original article contains 1,220 words, the summary contains 149 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Clickbait, no new info here. Driving the old “reduce speed limits” rhetoric again. As cars get safer speeds should be going up, especially on long roads where fatigue is the biggest cause of crashes
As cars get safer speeds should be going up
Unfortunately, cars are getting less safe, not safer.
For other road users, anyway.
By your reasoning we would lose all safety improvements and maintain the unsatisfactory level of safety we have now
Implying increasing speed increases deaths? This has been studied to death, increasing speed limits on long roads would reduce deaths. No need to make a strawman
Interesting points but the risk from collisions (often due to human error) need to be accounted for. Furthermore, not everyone drives a car from the last 5 years, not many can afford it. There’s still heaps of old Toyota Hilux(s) out there from the 1990’s and early 2000’s, and I’ve seen trucks still getting around from at least the 1980’s. ABS is a great safety feature but drivers need to know how to effectively use it and actually have a vehicle that has it.
From https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/nrss/fact-sheets/movement-and-place-approach
There’s an accumulating decrease in crashes due to
A) less time on road
B) compounded with less fatigue
I’m on mobile so I can’t pull studies up rn
