Study on Distracted Driving

[shovelhd]

Originally Posted by cachagua

Yes! DUI isn't frowned-upon or discouraged, it's straight-up ILLEGAL, and still our response is completely toothless. Story in my paper this morning about a guy on his 11th, that's eleventh, DUI... I'm like, at what point do we put someone's eyes out?

I was the foreman on a criminal jury considering the case of a man who drove into the back of a police car DUI. It was his fifth offense, however his priors were not admissible as evidence. We found out in the judge's chambers after we convicted him. That's part of the problem. Juries can't know about the priors, and judges, at least in MA, refuse to sentence repeat offenders to ensure deterrence.

[marciero]

Originally Posted by saf-t

Presuming that the software defaults to protecting the pedestrian/cyclist in the event of an emergency/potential collision situation, rather than protecting the "driver"..........

Mercedes Benz has already weighed in on this, or so I've heard. Its cars will be designed to protect the occupant when faced with this choice. The rationale being that if designed to, say, cause the least damage or injury, for example by choosing the risk of lesser injury to the occupants over greater injury to a pedestrian, the result would be that fewer people would buy them, with the net result being less safe roads.

[rugbysecondrow]

Originally Posted by pncguy

Holy cow. I just had an Aha! moment. This makes me rethink my desire to watch sports! (As opposed to being more tolerant of my son watching other people play Minecraft.)

Yeah, I did the same thing. Been outdoors with the kids much more, riding bikes, learning to long board and playing on the Slackline. This was the first year I didn't watch an NFL game, with the exception of the Super Bowl, nor college basketball or football.

As a life long Cubs fan, maybe I got 5 years worth of sports watching done in October!

[alterergo]

This study makes some unrealistic assumptions. There was another quite a while ago that used the fact that many cell phone carriers offered "unlimited" minutes in off-peak hours, say starting form 6 pm or 7 pm week-days. What this study found was a jump in accident rate in 15 or 30 min after "unilimited" minutes went into effect. Quite telling.

[erslah]

Originally Posted by kevinvc

.It's interesting to me that Oregon is ranked as the "least distracted", while Portland is one of the "most distracted" cities.

Just remember that Oregon is a big, mostly rural state with a metropolis in the far northwest corner that, to those who don't live there, might as well be another planet, in some respects.

And, to touch on another sub-theme of this thread, that metropolis is about to become one of the first cities in the nation to allow driverless cars, albeit with a lot of restrictions. At first blush, that's really scary. The more distracted drivers I see, though, the more ambivalent I feel. At least the cars' computers will be paying attention!

--Eric



Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

[Louis]

Originally Posted by marciero

The rationale being that if designed to, say, cause the least damage or injury, for example by choosing the risk of lesser injury to the occupants over greater injury to a pedestrian, the result would be that fewer people would buy them, with the net result being less safe roads.

And less profit for MB.

[kevinvc]

So, I was in the bike lane riding home today and the guy in a van next to me started turning into me so he could turn at the next intersection. I had been tracking him since he had been drifting around in his lane for a few blocks. I used my loud "HEY". I startled him so much he slammed on his brakes, almost getting rear ended, and I had a great view of him dropping his phone in surprise.. The kicker is that he was using a hands free headset but, for whatever reason was still holding his phone anyways. I assume he must have been looking up directions or something at the same time while he was chatting.

I just wish he had dropped it out his window instead of just into his lap

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by kevinvc

I just wish he had dropped it out his window instead of just into his lap

Reminds me of the time I was riding down the road and some guy had dropped his pack of cigarettes out the car window, onto the pavement.

I didn't see that happen, but I figured it out when I deliberately ran over the pack, could feel it was full, then had the driver holler at me!