I live in a smaller American city and ride my bike for most trips. I ride conservatively and am constantly watching cars tires or looking into the cabin to get early warning about sudden unsignalled turns or any other odd maneuvers. The amount of people I see just casually browsing Instagram or texting is insane.
I grew up in another country where it was illegal to hold a cellphone while driving and it was actually enforced. I'm just completely dumbfounded at the behaviour here and the lack of enforcement.
I occasionally have to drive a class 7 truck for work, which sits at about the same height as a semi truck (tractor/trailer). From that height you can see into most passenger cars. I'd guess 50-75% of people on the Interstate are more engaged in using their phones than driving their cars.
The hands-free law was IMO, a failure. What used to be people staring at their phones while holding them up at the steering wheel now has people trying to be more discreet and placing phones between their legs or near the cup holders.
This is my exact experience! People used to text with their phone in front of them, which is dangerous but at least they had peripheral vision. Now they hide their phone while they do it. You see it so often, someone not everyone looking vaguely at the road.
I thought this was a problem at first, but I don't see anyone trying to hide it anymore. "Driving" is just an app that people glance at while using their phones.
I went out of my way to install CarPlay in our old ICE car and think it adds safety, especially with maps in an unfamiliar area. Trying to read the map on a 3” wide screen in a cup holder or clipped to an air vent is way worse than on a 7” screen mounted in an easily viewable area.
But "reading a map" is only one thing you do with CarPlay.
People also use it for music, messaging, finding/changing destinations, voice calls, etc.
The CarPlay UI in particular is so inconsistent and unpredictable that I can never just have a routine. Some Siri commands randomly don't work ("I can't do that while you're driving") when they just worked a few minutes before.
Everything you do in a car is a choice. I don’t think CarPlay leads people to riskier choices on average than they’d make without it and makes some things they’re already choosing to do leas risky. (I ack that I don’t have data either.)
This. None of our cars require it (we drive older used stuff) but every time I rent a car I wonder how people operate e.g. the climate controls without crashing.
Walking and texting isn't dangerous on its own. A person bumping into someone because of texting, while annoying, has close to 0 ability to cause serious harm when compared to drivers doing the same.
I think the downvotes come from the fact that this argument is used as a relatively dumb anti-pedestrian rant in a lot of places. Frequently the pedestrian is "stepping into the road" where they have right of way (which in a lot of cities is any uncontrolled/unlighted intersection, regardless of whether a crosswalk is painted), and the car driver is loathe to admit that they didn't want to stop or didn't know that the pedestrian has right of way.
As a pro-cycling and pro-pedestrian person, my feeling is that walking and texting is just a red-herring complaint that is not the cause of any sort of serious problems. Putting it into the same bucket as distracted driving, which is VERY dangerous, and has a death toll attached feels disingenuous. Its like comparing a scraped knee to cancer. One of those is a serious problem killing lots of people, one of them is not. Even though both should be treated medically, we shouldn't be talking about them in the same context.
I think his point is that the graveyard is full of people who had the right of way. I don't think he's victim blaming, only saying that following the rules is not enough, you have to make sure everyone else is following and react proactively if they are not. Using your phone around heavy machinery like automobiles is simply not enough, even if the pedestrian crossing light is green. You can say this is wrong and unfair and horrible, etc... but ignoring it is not going to help you.
It takes two to not get run over. I'm deaf. So I really do not have the luxury of just hoping others see me. I have to be real careful in traffic. Is it fair? Not really. I care more about not being run over than whether it's fair.
Who thinks like this? Seriously what is wrong with you? Large SUVs have blind spots larger than people, and fatal crashes are generally happening in cross walks in cities. They often happen when vehicles are turning. Blaming pedestrians is just fucking awful.
[EDIT] I checked the data again most strikes are happening in urban areas in places where there is no crosswalk or on shoulders. So largely due t infrastructure placing pedestrians and cars in contention.
Someone who has been hit by a car twice. That's who thinks like that. I do not step into traffic without carefully looking every direction, to the horizon, for any vehicle that might move in my direction. Should I have to live like this? No. Do I live like this because I want to keep living? Yes.
Somehow the people in this thread have interpreted this observation as a justification that it's okay. Don't know why, really. Is it victim blaming to suggest locking ones' doors? Obviously we shouldn't have any thieves. How dare someone suggest measures that might reduce the ability of malevolent parties to harm you.
You're still victim blaming, having been hit by a car doesn't magically absolve you for have a rancid opinion. No one is advocating that pedestrians don't take precautions, this is a total straw man. People are calling for better, safer infrastructure and enforcement around unsafe driving and you're blaming walking while texting. Your claim is unsupported by evidence.
Excuse me I had to recheck the CDC data, the most common spots are actually in urban areas on shoulders or where there is no crosswalk. Basically in places where pedestrian infrastructure is poor.
You're being down voted because of your odious victim blaming. Moreover, CDC data shows alcohol being the leading cause of fatal crashes where a vehicle strikes a pedestrian. Texting by pedestrians doesn't even register in the statistics. Furthermore, no city is making it illegal to text while walking, that would be fucking absurd. The law proposed in the article you cited was proposed by State Senator John Liu who is a joke, and it never went anywhere.
Blaming pedestrians for bad infrastructure and giant cars is a super dickish, car-brained take. European cities don't have the same problems and people are no less likely to text and walk in those places.
I am not American. I am not a driver. I detest car-centric urban design.
It's fascinating how many of the replies require you or other commenters to rely heavily on straw men and false assumptions (like assuming American nationality) to twist reading my comment from its anodyne straightforward interpretation (look where you're going) into some sort of apologia for "car-brained dickishness". It's quite amazing.
If everyone who stepped into traffic while looking at their phones looked up first, fewer people would be hit by cars. I stand by this dickish, car-brained statement.
There's no evidence anywhere at all as far as I can tell that cell phone usage by pedestrians is a driver of fatal crashes. People assumed an American perspective because you posted a parochial article abut New York state. And you're just being an asshole.
I agree, but with the noted caveat that pedestrians who are completely oblivious to their surroundings are usually only a danger to themselves, whereas drivers who are even somewhat oblivious to their surroundings can be far more dangerous.
When I lived in SF, I saw this constantly btw. I probably saved on guy's life who saw a walk sign turn on at an intersection, proceeded to look at his phone, and stepped into the intersection. Meanwhile a car was running the red light at a fast speed (it was crossing Market somewhere up near 2nd Street), so I had to tug this guy by the back of his shirt to prevent him from getting creamed. And he actually gave me an annoyed look. This was sometime around 2015 though, so just an anecdote that doesn't have much to do with the data in the article.
Personally, I’m a careful no-phones driver and an equally careful pedestrian especially in high density environments. But I’ve lost count of the number of pedestrians who are waiting at an intersection, and lose situational awareness while looking down at their phones and based on some incorrect cue in their peripheral vision step out into traffic. (Is that the most common scenario where a car injures a pedestrian? No; but it’s an empirical observation.)
I suspect your downvotes are coming from readers who interpret it as some kind of victim-blaming because of the asymmetry in forces involved. Let’s just acknowledge this is a multifactorial problem and that there are going to be interventions from both the pedestrian and driver perspectives that keep people safe.
I grew up in another country where it was illegal to hold a cellphone while driving and it was actually enforced. I'm just completely dumbfounded at the behaviour here and the lack of enforcement.