“Smart” phones

Edward said:

... the reports I've seen publicised are increasingly suggesting that conversing even via handsfree provides a distraction that isn't present when talking to someone actually in the car. (I wish I could remember where I saw that report - as a non-car person, I didn't pay it as much mind as I might otherwise have done). There's been talk of banning it here. Technically, as with handhelds before the specfic ban, it could be associated with driving without dued care and attention. How they'd enforce a specfic ban, I don't know, though, given the first line of defence would doubtless be that it was a passenger was having the conversation or some such...

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That’s pretty much what I’ve read as well. Conversing with the person in the passenger’s seat differs from talking over the phone in that both people are in the same space, taking in the same surroundings, facing the same potential hazards.

Still, the temptation to tend to some business while stuck in traffic or on a long, lonely drive between cities out here in the American West can be almost irresistible. For longer than I care to recall I had a daily commute of 40-some miles each way, the afternoon leg of which could take upwards of two hours on a rainy Friday (it’s been known to rain in Seattle and environs, by the way). I know myself well enough to know that had I then had the car we recently bought, with all the gee-whiz hands-free stuff built in, I’d have been using it.

tonyb said:

That’s pretty much what I’ve read as well. Conversing with the person in the passenger’s seat differs from talking over the phone in that both people are in the same space, taking in the same surroundings, facing the same potential hazards.

Still, the temptation to tend to some business while stuck in traffic or on a long, lonely drive between cities out here in the American West can be almost irresistible. For longer than I care to recall I had a daily commute of 40-some miles each way, the afternoon leg of which could take upwards of two hours on a rainy Friday (it’s been known to rain in Seattle and environs, by the way). I know myself well enough to know that had I then had the car we recently bought, with all the gee-whiz hands-free stuff built in, I’d have been using it.

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THat's a commute I can't imagine doing. For twenty odd years, my commute has been thirty minutes by public transport; in better weather and when I was more disciplined about not working until all hours, I used to walk at least one way. I think I'd be more open to a longer one if I had fixed hours, but alas that's no longer the way of the world.

Arguably, used well, a Sat Nav can help drivers plan routes and prevent them from making last minute lane changes or hesitating because they are not sure of the directions. However, a badly used Sat Nav can distract the driver and increase the risk of an accident. It is important that drivers understand how best to use their sat nav and learn not to use it when it may be dangerous to do so.

Many do not use their sat-navs as a navigational help, instead they blindly listen to, and follow, the sat-nav instruction. The percentage of new drivers that can't map read has reached almost 100% here in the UK. The sat-nav for me is a source of annoyance on par with the cell phone. It can also be quite dangerous if followed blindly. A couple of years ago, whilst visiting Glasgow, a temporary one way system had been set up while sewer works were in place. I followed the one way signs but the sat-nav said: "When it's safe to do so, make a U turn." Sadly, there are drivers that do that.

We also get mainland truck drivers that get stuck in narrow lanes or under low bridges after blindly following the say-nav instruction. Nowadays there's many a new car that has a sat-nav combined with phone technology, it causes me much consternation.

Edward said:

THat's a commute I can't imagine doing. For twenty odd years, my commute has been thirty minutes by public transport; in better weather and when I was more disciplined about not working until all hours, I used to walk at least one way. I think I'd be more open to a longer one if I had fixed hours, but alas that's no longer the way of the world.

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We’re very much a car culture here in the States, especially in the more westerly regions, where the newer metropolitan areas are built to accommodate personal automobiles. In my neighborhood, every house has a two-car garage and a driveway that can hold four more.

Many motorists find their commute by car the only time in the day they have to themselves, and they come to treasure it. That goes some way toward explaining why so many vehicles on the road, built to accommodate four or more, are typically occupied only by the driver. It also casts some light on why so many people replace their cars long before they are worn out. For most folks, a newer, nicer car makes for a nicer every day experience. So it’s easy to rationalize the purchase.

GHT said:

Arguably, used well, a Sat Nav can help drivers plan routes and prevent them from making last minute lane changes or hesitating because they are not sure of the directions. However, a badly used Sat Nav can distract the driver and increase the risk of an accident. It is important that drivers understand how best to use their sat nav and learn not to use it when it may be dangerous to do so.

Many do not use their sat-navs as a navigational help, instead they blindly listen to, and follow, the sat-nav instruction. The percentage of new drivers that can't map read has reached almost 100% here in the UK. The sat-nav for me is a source of annoyance on par with the cell phone. It can also be quite dangerous if followed blindly. A couple of years ago, whilst visiting Glasgow, a temporary one way system had been set up while sewer works were in place. I followed the one way signs but the sat-nav said: "When it's safe to do so, make a U turn." Sadly, there are drivers that do that.

We also get mainland truck drivers that get stuck in narrow lanes or under low bridges after blindly following the say-nav instruction. Nowadays there's many a new car that has a sat-nav combined with phone technology, it causes me much consternation.

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I often use the mapping apps on my iPhone before I start the engine, to quickly study the route. I’ve lived in the Denver area for only five years now, so it’s still something of a second language to me, and I often find myself driving to places I’ve never been before. So I check ahead of the drive to know where I might have to consult the app again, usually when I’m within a short distance of the destination.

I occasionally encounter not-young people who have lived around here their entire lives and *still* rely on their mapping apps to get them where they’re going. That’s the other edge of the sword, I suppose: people don’t pay attention to any of that because they don’t have to.

Over-reliance on sat-nav, Waze, and similar electronic aids have had results ranging from comic to tragic. In San Francisco it is not uncommon to see long vehicles driven by non-locals playing teeter-totter at the crest of the numerous hills. Usually these are stretch limousines, out-town-tour buses, and the occasional tractor-trailer rig. On the other hand, a few years back a family in Southern Oregon was directed by their electronics to take a series of logging roads through the Cascades in winter. It did not end well.

OTOH, a mapping app suggested a route I wouldn’t have otherwise considered for a roughly 800-mile trip. I may never have reason to cover that territory again, but I’m happy to have seen it once. I came away from it understanding a bit more about that country and its inhabitants.

tonyb said:

OTOH, a mapping app suggested a route I wouldn’t have otherwise considered for a roughly 800-mile trip. I may never have reason to cover that territory again, but I’m happy to have seen it once. I came away from it understanding a bit more about that country and its inhabitants.

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This is the thing. It's very easy to become luddite and damn new technology, but all done and said it's never the technology is the real problem, more often the stupidity of the user. As they taught us at school, long pre-www, any computer is only as smart as its operator.

tonyb said:

As I’ve undoubtedly noted here before, I’d welcome more stringent traffic code enforcement around here. I see the aftermath of collisions much more frequently than I see motorists pulled over for infractions.

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Pleased to report that I drove through active speed limit enforcement on a well-travelled arterial an hour or so ago. More pleased to report that the motorcycle cop with the radar gun pointed my way was apparently looking to nab a driver going somewhat faster than my three or four mph (I’m guessing) over the limit.

Hi Tony, I've been off the Lounge for a bit for no real reason.

While being a Luddite has it's points, I did have a NEW printed Rand McNally map that didn't have the road to my house in the right place. My house was roughly 7 years old at that point. The house is 25 years old now. Hopefully, the Google maps update sooner than that.

While I see not Texting, talking on a hands free phone is pretty much the same as talking to some goof setting next to you in the car... A friend did buy both of his kids a Ford Ranger so they could only drive around with one other kid at a time.

At work, we can't talk on a cell phone and walk around the parking lot. I don't want to work with someone who can't walk and talk at the same time...

No conclusion here, just (nasty) food for though.

Later

I got a text from a friend just last week which necessitated me sending him a document. So I replied to the text with the doc. But it kicked back. I tried a few more times and then texted to him that the doc wouldn't go through and I needed to email it to him.
His reply was, "I don't have email". So I called him.
Turns out he has a low end dumb phone that only makes calls and simple texts. He has no email and no internet service anymore. When I asked him why? How? when? He said he got rid of it about a year ago and it was the best thing he's done for himself in years...and he doesn't miss it at all.
I eventually had to print out the doc and mail it to him.

My iPhone made short work of adding our “new” car to our insurance policy a couple-three weeks ago, from a distance of 1,300 miles or so. Take a photo of the van with its extensive aftermarket accessibility modifications, take a photo of the original owner’s invoice for that vehicle, showing its purchase price plus the $27,900 in modifications, send those photos via email to the insurance agent. Ten minutes or so later, the gal at the agency emails me proof of insurance.

Bing, bang, boom. Buckle up, hit the road.

I’m reminded of a three-party workplace conversation of 20-some years ago. One of that trio offered that he had no computer and couldn’t foresee ever getting one. The other parties (of which I was one) told him that he likely wouldn’t have much of a choice, that he would need one because just about everybody else would have one and that it would become the way people communicate, pay their bills, attend to business, etc. He would need a computer the way he then needed a car and a telephone.

I didn’t necessarily foresee those computers becoming more compact than a deck of cards, but I wouldn’t have found it an unlikely development, either.

That late-adopter now lives online, practically. Failing health has him largely housebound and his smartphone is something of a godsend. I haven’t seen him in well more than a decade, but we communicate regularly.

Of course I think it's a bad idea to do just about anything but drive while you're driving a traditional vehicle. I've passed people with a full four course meal spread out on their dash, eating away at 70+ mph. Cheeseburger in one hand, Big Gulp in the other. Steering with a knee.

If you say you have not ever steered with a knee for a moment, I'm calling liar pants.

However, I do think drivers are going to have to step up their multitasking game and get better at dealing with being distracted. Cars now have the equivalent of a full blown tablet right there in the panel, with apps, the GPS, photos, music, etc. In the Tesla models, that's all you have to work with as there is no "instrument panel," no speedometer or gauges. As cars themselves take over much of the driving/parking/accident avoidance for us, we're gonna get bored just sitting there. And the Boys Upstairs are not going to let a completely captive audience, available for what might be hours at a stretch, get away un-talked to. We don't have flying cars but we're getting cars that don't need much from us.
People are going to watch videos, eat, play games, listen to music, get satellite feeds, drink smoothies, shop, have sex, work, hold meetings, or whatever they can think up, all while zipping along the highway.

Cars are changing--they at the same time require more and less of our attention. We have to learn to drive differently, pay attention differently, incorporate gadgets safely. Banning electronics in cars is, in my own tiny opinion, a solution that can't work long term. It's another example of trying to force a change in primary human hardwiring, and not adapting to reality. Also? Very hard to enforce.

I am entirely freelance, my car is my office, and I could not earn any living were I forced to stop making calls on the road. Thankfully, the car I have now makes it possible to be entirely hands-free.

The thing that actually kept me honest was having a basic Chevy with a stick shift a few years ago. You cannot do anything but drive with a stick.

When you drive a vintage car, you can't even eat at the wheel. Try to eat a sloppy hamburger while driving a 1940s car, and you'll end up in a ditch. And don't even try to drink a soda unless you want to end up wearing it home.

One of the reasons I don't ever intend to own a car festooned with all the gizmos is because I am fundamentally not the kind of person who is able to handle all the multimedia distractions. When I drive, I don't even like to talk to passengers. My non-vintage car, a 2013 Subaru, has control buttons for the radio on the steering wheel and I'd rip them off and throw them away in a second if I could. Too distracting. When the day comes I can't get a car without a screen on the dashboard, I will give up driving altogether.

^^^^
If what Scott says is substantially correct, then we had better pray that the entirely self-driving car gets here soon.

After decades of more or less steady decline, traffic fatalities have been on a rise in recent years. My bet is that distracted driving is the primary, um, driver of that increase.

Just an hour or so ago I was in one of a pair of parallel left-turn lanes—the “outside” one. When the light turned green the driver of the white Toyota SUV in the inside lane drifted over into my lane, while we were both in the intersection. Yup, she was on a hand-held cell phone, and apparently oblivious to how she had nearly caused a collision. Had I been similarly distracted, it wouldn’t have been a “nearly.”

We track the mileage death rate (MDR) as fatalities per 100 million miles driven. After years of decline due to better engineered cars, supplemental restraint systems (air bags), greater seatbelt usage, and fewer drivers driving under the influence, we have indeed seen an unwelcome upward trend. Drug impairment is a driving factor and it is way under reported. If you are injured you get treated and if there isn’t something obvious (like the smell of an alcoholic beverage) your sobriety isn’t normally assessed. However, I’m convinced the the biggest driving force in collisions and the attending deaths is the increase of distracted drivers. Again, this is way underreported as unless there is a fatality with prosecution search warrants for the device/usage aren’t normally requested and shockingly people lie when asked by law enforcement if they were on a device when they caused a crash. We have studies where talking hands free is as distracting as holding the device, but texting is the worst.

For people to put their convenience above another’s safety is the height of selfishness. I don’t think wireless devices of any sort, including hands-free, should be allowed while driving. I don’t have any sympathy for people who put their wants and needs above the safety of others. I don’t care if you can’t do your business, check on your children, order a pizza, or close the deal of your lifetime; distracted driving kills innocent people.


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I can still remember a time when I knew more than my phone.

GHT said:

I can still remember a time when I knew more than my phone.

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What fascinates me is how the brain works. I used to know a lot of numbers I sued regularly. By 2006, when I lost a mobile while abroad with work, I realised I knew only three numbers in the world: my own mobile, my parents' landline (which had been my own home number for years), and the office. Dad used to be office-famous for his ability to recall numbers he dialed maybe once a year, or eighteen months ago in one case. Lost it all when the mobile came in. Another former colleague of mine for years never wore a watch, and was known for an uncanny ability to have a sense of what time it was at any point he might be asked, rarely close to even ten minutes out. Then he got a phone that told the time....

I'm not agin technology by any means, but it's fascinating to me how the human mind adapts to necessity. The kids I teach in China will often display an incredible ability to commit huge chunks of text to memory, word for word - comes from practice. I've seen similar feats in the theatre, where people do it for a living (particularly in shows like Shakespeare, when getting the text down word for word is absolutely sacrosanct). That said, I read an interesting report recently where the psychology researchers concluded from their research that - contrary to the orthodoxy to date - having 24/7 access to the web doesn't do the number on our ability to remember that it was previously supposed. I do wonder if this is down to the subconscious again - i.e. we're all now so hyper aware that you can't trust everything you read online, are we less likely to perceive a quick Google search as the way to confirm everything?

^^^^^^
I at times find myself unable to recall where I read or saw or heard some piece of information just a day or two (or was it three days?) prior.

Even more frustrating (and troubling) is when I remember where I picked up that information but I can’t recall what the information was.

Am I losing my marbles? Or am I being so bombarded with “information” that it gets buried under all the other information? It’s akin to a hoarder who might have some nice enough stuff he can’t enjoy because it’s buried under all his other stuff.

I’ve had occupations that had me memorizing tons of facts and figures. Those occupations are either no longer in existence or they no longer require such memorization skills.

The printing press made all but obsolete the memorization of lengthy texts (the Koran, say). There are still people who can recite such tomes verbatim, but it’s hardly of any practical value anymore, just as digital technologies have made obsolete my ability to instantly recall all that data.

Hell, I don’t even remember phone numbers anymore.

LizzieMaine said:

There were a lot of predictions like that around this time. The Smithsonian Institution had a radio program called "The World Is Yours," with much speculation about the future, and in one 1938 broadcast they went on at length about pocket-sized hand-held wireless phones with instantaneous world-wide audio-video reception. The only thing they got wrong was the idea that enterprising youths would beat the prices of the manufacturers by building their own phones from loose parts.

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I recently acquired an Apple Watch. I can’t say I like its look, and it didn’t come cheap, but its health monitoring features (oximeter, heart rate monitor, rudimentary EKG) warranted the expenditure and its appearance isn’t all that objectionable.

It’s in many ways an extension of the iPhone (it has to be paired with the phone). It does pretty much everything the phone does, and then some. I find myself using it more and more all the time.

I’m considering making myself a yellow hat, a la Dick Tracy.