[dopylitty]

It should've been expanded into driving a long time ago. There are laws against distracted driving but I still see people weaving around like they're drunk on the roads. When I look into the car they're usually holding a phone (on speakerphone) or holding it up to their ear.

People suck at driving enough as it is without driving one handed and distracted.

[insane_dreamer]

Isn't it already illegal in most places? (sure peolpe do it anyway, but if you're caught there are heavy fines)

[whaleofatw2022]

Last year in Michigan it was made a primary offense. Driving was really pleasant for a month or two and they realized nobody enforces it where it would help most.

[wildzzz]

Montana is still legal apparently but I'm sure cops could write you a ticket for the infractions you commit while on your phone, just not for the phone itself.

[consteval]

They're never caught

[ericmay]

In addition to the added crashes and deaths caused by mobile phone usage, state and federal leaders should be setting agendas that reduce car usage altogether to prevent deaths and injuries and pivot toward safer and by far cheaper modes of transit.

[EasyMark]

Do you have proof there have been more car accidents since phones entered the driving arena compared to the before times? I always hear people claiming the roads are more dangerous but I’ve not seen any more accidents than when I was younger. Just a quick perusal on the web shows fatalities per 1 million miles has dropped significantly since the 1990s

[jmb99]

Part of the problem with analyzing the general capabilities/safety of drivers over time is that cars have gotten way safer, and smarter. Frontal pre-collision brake assist, automatic lane centering, radar-assisted cruise control, 9+ airbags per car, better seat belts (some that actually are airbags), brilliantly engineered crumple zones, they all substantially reduce the number of deaths per mile driven as well as deaths per accident. Plus in general, people drive greater distances on average now, and make more freeway trips, which are generally safer (read: fewer collisions per mile driven) than surface street trips. So, just because there are fewer deaths or accidents per mile driven, it does not directly follow that people are better drivers. I think people would have to be much, much, much worse drivers today than in the 80s/90s to get fatalities per mile back up to where it used to be.

I’ve only been driving for a decade (although I’ve been paying attention to traffic for maybe 15 years?) and in the last ~4 years I’ve anecdotally noticed a very steep decline in general driving competence, across 3 provinces and 6 states. Not just distracted driving (poor reactions, unable to keep vehicles centred in lanes, etc), but unnecessarily aggressive driving (purposefully blocking merges, passing in dangerous conditions, etc), unnecessarily fearful driving (hugging the right of the lane, driving >20% below the speed limit/flow of traffic during busy times of day, braking unnecessarily early for stoplights that haven’t yet changed [or worse, for a stoplight that doesn’t apply], etc), and what I call “mindless driving” (camping the left lane while travelling well under the flow of traffic and/or speed limit with cars passing 20-40km/h faster on the right, changing lanes without checking it’s clear or even signalling, blowing through stop signs/crosswalks, not moving over or slowing down for emergency vehicles on the shoulder or approaching from behind, etc).

All of these things have been happening forever, but I’m certain they’re occurring more frequently now. I’ve had a dashcam in every vehicle I’ve owned, and I used to save clips of “idiots” every week or two when driving ~600km/week. These days I drive less than a third of that on average and I’m saving clips almost every time I drive somewhere. Just this past week, I’ve seen two near collisions involving school buses, 6 (!) cars changing >3 lanes in opposing directions simultaneously in and out of each other within 150m of multi-lane off ramp, an accessible school vehicle (wheelchair-equipped minivan for disabled students) pull out of a stopped lane into another lane in front of a car travelling at full speed (~80km/h, the posted speed limit) who had to swerve off the road to avoid it, a vehicle purposefully matching the speed of a vehicle trying to merge on the highway to prevent them from merging safely, and (my favourite) a pickup truck accelerating from ~105km/h to ~130km/h at full throttle (while previously camping the left lane of a two-lane freeway) to prevent me from moving over for a police car and ambulance stopped on the shoulder, partially in my lane, up ahead. All within ~450km (busier driving week than usual). And this isn’t a particularly notable time period, the last 2 years have been like this constantly.

Maybe I’m just noticing it more now, maybe it’s localized, but I’m very confident that drivers, in general, are worse now than they were even 4 years ago.

[xuhu]

In the daily downtown crawl at 5PM I count about one in four drivers on their phone. Is there a way to tell apart the adaptive cruise control cars from the ones without ? ACC is the only way I can explain why there isn't a crash every 5 minutes.

[fragmede]

ACC won't engage under 25 mph. The reason for the lack of crashes might be that driving isn't that hard for most people.

[jmb99]

Many cars do have “stop-and-go” assist, including lane centring, meaning the car will maintain distance to the car in front down to 0 while maintaining its position in the centre of the lane, and then accelerate from 0 when traffic starts moving again. This is a relatively new feature, being generally available on luxury marks from ~2016 or so. Many cars with ACC prior to that wouldn’t engage below some speed, but would continue operating down to nearly 0 or 0, and then require the driver to take over until the engagement cutoff speed was reached. Some cars as far back as at least 2012 supported this (that I’ve driven), possibly older as well.

[xuhu]

Seems to vary across models. Googling for Honda Civic: "And the Low-Speed Follow function can bring the vehicle to a complete stop when a vehicle detected ahead slows to a stop, and it lets you resume operation by pressing a button or the accelerator."

[Dylan16807]

Or at least, driving at very slow speeds with no pedestrians around doesn't require much attention.

[l33t7332273]

They’re not even talking much of the time, they’re texting (or worse, scrolling some social media)

[kelnos]

This is illegal most (all?) places in the US, but as with many things, it's poorly enforced.