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by bigstrat2003 132 days ago
If the vehicle is not moving at all, there's no way that you can cause an accident by looking at your phone. Because you aren't moving.
2 comments

I almost can't beleive adults are having this conversation.

You have never been sitting at a light, and see everone around you with their heads down, while the light has been green for 4 seconds?

Inverse, Have you ever been rear ended because a person staring down at their phone at a red light just decides to roll forward because someones brake lights in the pack deluminate for a moment?

I ask, because point 1 happens to me daily, and point 2 has put my car in the shop for weeks twice in the last 5 years.

A totally separate point to make; what could you possibly be doing on the phone? Like how addicted to social media or work must one be that they wait for the briefest of moments to distract themselves? I ask that not to judge or poke fun, but to say that you MUST be doing something that you find so important, and thus taking your attention, that it is now your priority. Or else, you would choose to wait.

I know you, as a reasonable adult on this forum, know what people are talking about here.

I can stay parked at a green light the entire cycle, and it still will be 100% the fault of the person who rear ends me.

As for what I'm doing, it's probably something like scrolling the map to see what road I'll be turning on in 5 minutes, so that I don't have to look at it (regardless of whether I'd be touching it) later. Or a dozen other similar things, none of which have anything to do with social media.

And I know you, as a reasonable adult on this forum, know this.

With all due respect, I could not imagine one thing, nor a dozen, that would involve me fiddling with my phone while on a commute of any length.

I say this having both a vehicle with wireless carplay, and another where I need to manually configure maps. And yes, I often fiddle with maps as I'm a nervous wreck, but I truly cannot imagine doing it "on the fly".

my company does not pay me enough to hyper scan my phone for teams/outlook, nor does my interest in "task/notification x" trump my desire to not have my car in the shop for weeks.

Different strokes I guess. I'm sure you're a safe driver all things considered.

Perhaps not while you’re not moving, but when you suddenly realise that the traffic light has changed to green and move off in a rush while distracted without having been monitoring the traffic, don’t you think that it’s more likely you’ll be hit by the truck that rolled through the lights as it turned red?