Distraction in road deaths figures

[AdelaidePeter]

This might be paywalled, but the Adelaide Advertiser has the story "Distraction responsible for more than half of SA road deaths" https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/truecrim ... 1403eb023d . Deaths attributed to distraction (I assume possibly other factors too):
* 24 of 45 road SA deaths this year
* 193 out of 451 (42.8%) from 2015 to 2019
* 33.6 over the last decade.
I don't know if police forensics are getting better at identifying distraction, or it really is getting worse; but I suspect distraction is in fact getting worse. It would be good to see the study behind this news article, and especially see how much is due to mobile phone usage.

[Mububban]

Considering the mind boggling amount of fines those new mobile phone detecting cameras are issuing, I'm not surprised at all. These days I barely worry about a drunk driver killing me while cycling, but I'm constantly concerned about mobile phone distraction as I see it multiple times a day when driving or riding.

[warthog1]

Considering the mind boggling amount of fines those new mobile phone detecting cameras are issuing, I'm not surprised at all. These days I barely worry about a drunk driver killing me while cycling, but I'm constantly concerned about mobile phone distraction as I see it multiple times a day when driving or riding.

Ditto.
My biggest fear too.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... rities-say

https://www.racv.com.au/royalauto/movin ... -apps.html

https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.a ... road-toll/

[antigee]

...........I don't know if police forensics are getting better at identifying distraction, or it really is getting worse; but I suspect distraction is in fact getting worse. It would be good to see the study behind this news article, and especially see how much is due to mobile phone usage.

I suspect drivers are doing the police forensics themselves in many of the cases....with drivers using (non-phone related) distraction as in their mind a legitimate reason for unsafe driving....a sad example springs to mind...the driver that killed Mike Hall....

"38. There was no evidence that Mr Bobb had been using his phone prior to stopping his vehicle after the impact. It was suggested at hearing that the parked truck had distracted him from the road up to the point of impact. This was not supported by the expert witnesses’ evidence of distraction times." (Coroners report)

and in the death of Gareth Davies on a wide road routinely used by cyclists near Mount Macedon:

"The County Court heard the smash happened when Kent was using bluetooth to change music on her radio.

Kent admitted this had distracted her from the road before she collided with Mr Davies from behind.

"I was flicking through the channels for a song, and then there was nothing on and that's when I was changing the radio stations," Judge Susan Pullen told the court in sentencing, quoting Kent's police interview.

"I obviously wasn't looking on the road when I was doing it this time," Kent told police.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-26/ ... n/10554516

Some recent UK research into touch screens and distraction has been widely published with drivers taking up to 16seconds to select music....many of the reports quote the US highways authority safety requirement that an operation needs to be completed in under 12seconds....at 60km/hr that is 200m! sets the bar for auto manufacturers pretty low...

Also drivers left the lane while using a touch screen:

"While many drivers realized the system was causing a distraction and modified their behavior by, for example, slowing down, performance was still adversely affected with drivers unable to maintain a constant distance to the vehicle in front, reacting more slowly to sudden occurrences and deviating outside of their lane.

https://www.tu-auto.com/touchscreen-inf ... n-alcohol/

Incidentally last year I was a passenger in a rental car in the Canadian state of Alberta and we had to pull over (tricky in deep snow!) to enter an address in the SatNav....State law there makes the manual entry of data whilst driving illegal and the SatNav had been set to prevent it being used in that way...a pretty easy fix but can't see that happening here

its only going to get worse

[opik_bidin]

Touch screens should be banned. More manual buttons please. Software engineers should work more on this and get paid.

Old radios and mobile phonrs can be felt so you could still use it whike looking at the road, currwnt ones are touch screen which requires you to look so you dont pay attention to the road

[DavidS]

Touch screens should be banned. More manual buttons please. Software engineers should work more on this and get paid.

Old radios and mobile phonrs can be felt so you could still use it whike looking at the road, currwnt ones are touch screen which requires you to look so you dont pay attention to the road

I've only ever driven a car with a touch screen when I hired one for a couple of weeks.

Terrible things, far slower to change music and I had to stop to change the album I was playing, which had to be on my phone. CDs and cassettes were far less distracting and took far less time than flicking around on a screen.

DS

[bychosis]

Touch screens should be banned. More manual buttons please. Software engineers should work more on this and get paid.

Old radios and mobile phonrs can be felt so you could still use it whike looking at the road, currwnt ones are touch screen which requires you to look so you dont pay attention to the road

Totally agree. Being able to feel to the ‘third from the left’ or similar is so much better than looking, hovering your finger in the right spot and pressing when ready.

Unfortunately one touch screen can be programmed for a million buttons for ‘free’ and adding extra physical switches costs real money.

[AdelaidePeter]

Touch screens should be banned. More manual buttons please. Software engineers should work more on this and get paid.

Old radios and mobile phonrs can be felt so you could still use it whike looking at the road, currwnt ones are touch screen which requires you to look so you dont pay attention to the road

"And mobile phones" ?? It's pretty hard to dial a 10 digit number on an old style phone without looking, and even if you can, it is illegal.

But yes, I would agree with all touch screens being banned while in the act in driving. Voice activation will largely solve this, but I would still like to see it limited to navigation, and passive listening (like radio, CDs, MP3). All forms of telephone conversation should be banned while driving, because hands free phone usage has been shown to be just as much of a distraction as talking on a hand held phone.

[Comedian]

IMHO where there is a car VS cyclist incident distraction is recorded as "sorry mate I didn't see you".