ok there...what a dumbass idea, good thing you're not in charge of making the laws.
Distracted driving is as bad or worse than impaired driving and it's being done by a lot more people. It poses an existential threat to all motorcyclists. Dire times call for dire measures.
If you're using your phone as a GPS when you're driving you're likely distracted unless you've got it mounted on the dash, do not touch it while in motion and are following voice directions. My car (2010 STi) has GPS; it also has a feature that disables a good deal of the GPS touch-screen buttons when the car is in motion. For example, I can only enter or change destinations etc when the car is stopped. Does your phone disable certain features while underway?
No, I didn't think so and this is my point.
I hate distracted idiots on the road just as much the next guy and never hesitate to point them out but this is just plain nonsense.
:shrug: I'm sure people who just had "a" beer say the same thing about drunk driving. It's taken 35 years to get society to the point where driving under the influence is considered a major deal; too bad it'll likely take another 35 to deal with this addiction to "devices."
I use my phone as my primary gps, I guess its distracting for me to look at it and see what's coming up. Hell, I shouldn't even touch any of the buttons on the center console of my car even skipping to the next track or adjusting the heat/ac may be far too distracting
Any electronic device in cars is distracting. Those put there by the auto manufacturer used to be pretty simple but are getting more and more complex, some even with "joysticks" and the like to navigate complex menu trees. Hell, cars increasingly come with lane-assist and automatic braking and "blind spot" warning systems because drivers are becoming increasingly distracted, often by the very systems that come with the car itself.
Traditional controls like radio buttons and volume knobs or HVAC controls are mastered in minutes and become controllable with a glance and muscle-memory. Funny how, when I drive my 2nd car (02 Mustang GT) -- which I rarely drive -- I find my hand drifting to where the volume and radio controls are in my STi for the first few miles thanks to muscle memory; very little mental processing is involved in simple controls like this. Punching in new addresses, texting replies, dialing phone numbers etc requires far more mental time and attention; the numbers speak for themselves. As I said, the distraction for this sort of thing is as bad or worse than impaired driving now.
There's a middle ground I'm sure: Instead of the screen blanking period we allow certain functions to work, like GPS, but with limited touchscreen functionality (like car manufacturers do) until the car stops. If the screen is not showing GPS when the car starts moving, it goes blank. I'm sure others will whine as their particular addictions are affected ("But
I play music from my device and
need to select from my playlist..." ...) There's got to be a happy medium where real value like GPS is nominally affected and texting is 100% prevented.
If we can't do that then we get tougher with the law; treat offenses (even the first) like drunk driving or even HTAs172: roadside suspensions, forfeitures, massive insurance hits etc. People aren't letting the statistics stop them from putting others at serious risk, device junkies are unwilling to have automation (e.g. auto-blanking when underway) deal with it so how about hitting offenders in the pocketbook?
You'll probably object to that too.
