BS: Phone related traffic deaths

Subject: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Feb 19 - 01:13 PM

I wonder if anyone has counted up how many people have walked in front of oncoming traffic, whilst answering their phones, or playing games on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Feb 19 - 01:33 PM

An acquaintance of mind offers a public talk titled

Technology: The New Addiction?

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Iains
Date: 27 Feb 19 - 01:49 PM

I see a lot of people walking and cycling wearing earpods on narrow lanes barely wide enough for one vehicle. Not quite the same but equally suicidal.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Feb 19 - 06:40 PM

A study in the U.S. in 2013 estimated 5000. No doubt the number is up because more people own phones now.

https://www.safety.com/distracted-walking-a-major-pedestrian-safety-concern/


Whatever the number is, it's too high.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mossback
Date: 27 Feb 19 - 06:50 PM

If they're that goddamn stupid, let 'em die, as long as they don't take any innocent bystanders with 'em.

Could be at least partially a self-correcting problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: BobL
Date: 28 Feb 19 - 02:50 AM

Come to that, how many deaths have been caused by drivers using their phones?

I must admit to using mine while driving, a couple of times. But only when there was nobody else around to see - or to collide with.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 19 - 06:27 AM

As I'm not up for wishing dead even the worst murderers and terrorists, I'm not up for people dying just because they've used their phones in a careless way. Having said that, using a handheld phone whilst driving is a deadly practice. I should like to see far more severe punishments for this.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Feb 19 - 07:42 AM

Come to that, how many deaths have been caused by drivers using their phones?

I have seen reports about a US research project that estimated that the percentage of accidents where phone usage was implicated put the significance as: 80% due to phone usage and only 20% due to holding the phone.

Hands free, is not brain free. You visualise the person you are speaking to, and driving a car needs a lot of visualisation, and not such a distraction.

I used a phone once while driving and decided it was way too dicey. But then, generally, I use the phone to reply to voice messages - not to answer before the ringtone stops.

And I have seen adverts warning people not to cross the road while happytapping.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Feb 19 - 10:07 AM

Its the modern obsession, isn't it?

The reason I posted this is that three people on separate occasions just walked in front of my moving car when I drove into Weymouth the other day. Absolute miracle I didn't kill one guy, he just strode across a pelican crossing when the lights were green without looking, never taking his eyes off his phone.

You daren't drive fast round here. There are deer and badgers that just wander out into the road. fair enough, they were here before us.

This is like something new though.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 28 Feb 19 - 02:48 PM

Here in Oz, this is the latest technology for catching drivers using mobile phones.

Bring it on, I say!

New cameras will catch drivers using mobile phones on NSW roads

Trial to start after legislation allows new, specialised cameras to detect phone use in cars

Thu 3 May 2018 12.04 AEST

NSW is aiming to stamp out the use of phones while driving with the help of new camera technology.

New South Wales will allow the use of world-leading camera technology to detect drivers using their phones.

Several Australian jurisdictions, including Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria, have considered using automated camera technology to stamp out phone use behind the wheel.

But NSW is the first to take concrete steps to legislate, passing new powers as part of a broader suite of road safety reforms this week.

The legislation allows new, specialised cameras to be used to detect phone use, but will also allow the use from existing infrastructure – speed cameras, for example................[snip]

The dangers of phone use by drivers were brought into sharp relief earlier this year, when two police officers, Jonathan Wright and Matthew Foley, were critically injured after a car ploughed into them in Sydney’s southwest.

The driver had taken his eyes off the road for 20 seconds to look at his phone.

In total, drivers illegally using mobile phones have been involved in 184 crashes between 2012 and 2017, resulting in seven deaths and 105 injuries................[snip]

Speaking in NSW parliament on Wednesday, Nationals MP Ben Franklin said the technology would aid the efforts of police to stamp out phone use.

“While more than 40,000 infringements were issued by police for illegal mobile phone use in the 2016-17 financial year, emerging automated camera and software technology presents an opportunity to supplement police enforcement and further deter motorists from illegally using a mobile phone,” he said................[snip]


Also this is one of the best social experiments I have seen

As as ex-workplace communications trainer, it reinforces the old message:
“I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand”

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: banjoman
Date: 01 Mar 19 - 06:13 AM

Use of a mobile phone while driving should carry an automatic 6 month driving ban. That may sort them out. I am not too happy about using phones which are plugged in to the car audio system either as any distraction while driving can lead to death or injury to other road users

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Mar 19 - 08:56 AM

Some companies in Ireland link their drivers' phones to the handbrake, so the phone can't be used unless the handbrake is engaged, effectively meaning the drivers keep the phone in the glove compartment.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Mar 19 - 11:12 AM

1 - as a cyclist, I despair of other cyclists wearing headphones in traffic - idiots with a death wish...

2a - as a pedesatrian, me and the mrs were nearly hit crossing a road
by a driver not only using a phone,
but looking out his far side window whilst doing so...

2b - as a pedesatrian, last week I was walking down a long straight pavement,
a group of teenagers were walking towards me all staring closely at their phone screens.
As we came closer, and closer, I kept an amused eye on them,
until one lad was within inches from colliding with me.
My loud manly "Oi...!!!" surprised and shook him out of his gormless trance just at the last moment...
No further words were exchanged *...


[* well you can't blame me for muttering an appropriate insult under my breath as he regained his composure...]

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Mar 19 - 11:14 AM

"pedesatrian".. yep.. lazily copied and pasted the same spelling mistake...

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 01 Mar 19 - 06:43 PM

pfr, I get so tempted to do your "Oi!" trick to fellow pedestrians. My "Oi!" might not be manly enough to do the trick, though. LOL

I had a similar experience to your example 2b. I was walking up a sloping path leaving a city park, and heading for the street footpath. Every person I saw either coming down the path, or walking along the street footpath had their head down looking at their phone. Mostly young people. Possibly uni students because the city campus is nearby.

But even older people do it. I very nearly did the "oi" trick to a middle aged woman this week. She was walking straight towards me. I was tempted to just stand still and wait for her to run into me.

But maybe the phone phenomenon is bleeding into everyday life. Twice this week when I was driving, and within a few minutes of each other, two people just started walking across the road right in front of me without checking for traffic.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Acorn4
Date: 01 Mar 19 - 07:17 PM

I work part time these days and cycle into work. Two days running I've been run into by another cyclist - day 1 gawping at his phone, day 2 oblivious because of his headphones - going for the hat trick tomorrow!!

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Mar 19 - 11:37 PM

I can't recall treading in dog shit more than once or twice in the last 10 years...

I wonder what the average score per month is for smartphone zombies...?????

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Mar 19 - 12:04 AM

A few years ago, I'd encounter drivers on phone very frequently here in California, and it often seemed like they were driving drunk. Then the legislature outlawed it. That didn't seem to make much difference at first, but I think the Highway Patrol has developed enforcement techniques. Now I rarely see a driver talking on the phone in California - but it's still a frequent nuisance in many other states.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Mar 19 - 02:45 AM

your "Oi!" trick to fellow pedestrians

My trick, regardless of phones/happytapping, is often to hug the wall (etc) on the inside. This is because people often, and it isn't exclusively young people neither, talk to their walking partner and don't want to talk in single file. But if you look like you ain'ta gonna budge they quickly realise you can't jinx left and jinxing right would split their yapping. Lets face it, I ain'ta gonna walk in in the road, too many like minded motorists.

Result!

There are exceptions, I don't like forcing people (or me) to walk into the road with their back to the traffic.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 02 Mar 19 - 05:03 AM

Very noble of you, pfr! :-)

It takes a lot of mental and emotional effort, I reckon, to drive and/or walk for yourself and others at the same time who choose not to take responsibility for their own actions.

Sometimes when I am driving and waiting to enter traffic from a side street with limited view of oncoming traffic, and with an impatient driver behind me, I choose not to enter the road when I see a one-car sized gap in oncoming traffic because I have a serious suspicion that Mr or Ms Impatience behind me will pull out into the traffic right behind me on the basis of my evaluation that it is safe for me i.e. safe for one car to enter traffic, rather than stopping to evaluate the safety margin for themselves, i.e. two cars fitting into a one-car gap.

COTUS - centre of the universe syndrome. The whole world will get out of their way without needing to be told, e.g. without using their indicator signals, and without them having to check to make sure that it is safe to proceed.

Question - off topic. A thought just occurred to me. If COTUS is centre of the universe syndrome, what is (the current) POTUS? Just wondering - from afar.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Mar 19 - 12:06 PM

I walked past a cyclist yesterday riding the wrong way along a one way street with no hands on handlebars, wearing headphones and tapping on a mobile phone, totally oblivious to anything else, and myself calling him an idiot!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Mar 19 - 09:00 AM

In Australia we drive on the left. A few months ago I was waiting to get my trolley out of my friend's car from the the back seat, behind the driver as she has a child's seat on the left. As always I stand facing the oncoming traffic making sure the driver sees me, even tho no-one is going to hit the door as I open it.

A gi-normous car approaches driving straight as an arrow (cruise control?) Driver has his right hand on the wheel & his left arm is hidden below the dashboard (control panel) obviously holding a phone as his eyes never look up. He drives past & as the next driver has eyes forward & both hands on the wheel I open the door & get my trolley out.

This happened the same week a driver was fined lots of money & lost her licence after being caught on dashcam looking up & down, up & down, up & down etc, etc, a zillion times.

Use it Lose it campaign: Young men on mobiles behind bulk of serious accidents

Lest week I saw a cylist zipping thru peak hour traffic with mobile phone to their ear.

When I sold my car in 1978 I bought a shopping trolley & have use them ever since. Once the problem used to be folks chatting & not noticing my trolley ...

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 03 Mar 19 - 01:42 PM

Motorist on two phones at the wheel b among 1000 danger drivers caught every day

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 03 Mar 19 - 05:21 PM

Sometimes when I am driving and waiting to enter traffic from a side street with limited view of oncoming traffic, and with an impatient driver behind me, I choose not to enter the road when I see a one-car sized gap in oncoming traffic because I have a serious suspicion that Mr or Ms Impatience behind me will pull out into the traffic right behind me on the basis of my evaluation that it is safe for me i.e. safe for one car to enter traffic, rather than stopping to evaluate the safety margin for themselves, i.e. two cars fitting into a one-car gap.

This brings back-seat driving to a whole new level. I suggest that you concentrate on driving your own car, Helen, and leave the other people to drive theirs.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Mar 19 - 07:37 PM

Nervous drivers are a liability. If nervousness leads you to being in two minds you become a menace to other road users. It's far too easy to pass a driving test and it's scandalous that there's no follow-up to ensure that drivers have increased in skill, experience, confidence and consideration for other road users.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Mar 19 - 09:18 PM

Me and the mrs both took driving lessons over a number of years...
She was too timid and indecive, and failed three tests..

I was, shall we say, 'very assertive' and keen to drive as fast as the instructor would permit me.
But I constantly stalled on T junctions.
I took two courses of lessons but never completed either to take a test,
because money ran out both times...
I was probably safer to myself and other road users sticking with a bicycle...
We couldn't afford to run a car anyway.....

Now I've gradually given up cycling due to health issues
[bikes been gathering dust for 3 or 4 years],
and the public transport service round here is shite...
Probaly won't even be any bus passes left when I reach the right age...

That just leaves me as a pavement warrior for justice...

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 05 Mar 19 - 12:14 AM

Doug Chadwick,

With the greatest respect, if you don't understand the concept I was describing, have no idea of the visual limitations on the T junction I was talking about, and have no idea about my driving capabilities, then please don't pass judgement on my driving.

If you have nervous issues about driving, then you don't need to drive.

"This brings back-seat driving to a whole new level. I suggest that you concentrate on driving your own car, Helen, and leave the other people to drive theirs."

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 05 Mar 19 - 03:19 AM

Talking to a passenger can be dangerous, particularly one who doesn't hold a driving licence.

They almost demand answers and it is not always safe to respond immediately. I sometimes have to shut up mid sentence, as a passenger, when situations on the road demand. Passengers are not always registering the conditions on the road, which means I am annoyed with myself at the slow realisation.

The person on the other end of the phone has no chance to assess the demands on the driver.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 05 Mar 19 - 04:48 AM

..... then please don't pass judgement on my driving.

And you shouldn't pass judgement on the drivers behind you. They will be perfectly capable of making their own decisions once they get the same view as you had. Mr or Ms Impatience may well have started out as Mr or Ms Tranquil until they got stuck behind Ms Dither.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 05 Mar 19 - 05:16 AM

So what makes you think that I am Ms Dither? What evidence do you have for that?

Don't make assumptions, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Mar 19 - 05:21 PM

I have never used a phone while driving. I could plug it in hands free but I don't. It took me a nervous year to re learn how to drive a performance car. I used to drive sedans.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Mar 19 - 05:30 PM

"I used to drive sedans."

Like this one??
;-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 06 Mar 19 - 12:13 AM

Funny, Backwoodsman! You never know - with the bicycle boom in inner cities, we might get tuk-tuks & cycle-rickshaws taking the place of taxis so it isn't a great leap to think of harnessing the power of weightlifting joggers to carry sedan chairs. "Make money while keeping fit!"

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Mar 19 - 01:02 AM

Backwoodsman, that type of wiggery would conceal the headphones at least, but the steerer still looks distracted.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Helen
Date: 06 Mar 19 - 04:18 AM

The driver might be like a taxi driver, being obliged to listen to the passenger's rants and whingeing and conspiracy theories while nodding and smiling and looking interested if the passenger glances in his direction.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Mar 19 - 10:34 AM

My American self is stuck on "pelican crossing" because I am easily entertained.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: saulgoldie
Date: 07 Mar 19 - 07:29 AM

I'm not sure if cell phones are mostly the cause and the gateway, or just another symptom of our insane desire to do more and more in a fixed amount of time. As exemplified by the cell phone walking, driving, (any)thing, we discuss this phenomenon as "multi-tasking." "Multi-tasking" as commonly understood is non-existent. What we REALLY mean is "semi-tasking" or "split-tasking" since we can only really do one thing at a time with pure focus. What we mean by MT is actually jumping back and forth between two tasks or among several tasks such that at any given moment, we are focused on one of them.

Now, some people can switch quickly enough to effectively do both or all tasks adequately. But they are still not doing both or all at the same time. Attentions to each of the tasks varies. With some of the walkers and drivers, their main focus is on the call, and not their motion. They are the worst at interfering with others who actually ARE focused on their motion. And when one is more focused on their motion, the person in the phone call gets short-changed, because they are getting the seconds in the attention competition.

All this can partially explain the current interest in "mindfulness." Mindfulness, as I understand it is the focus on being here, now, and in whatever activity one is involved in, and nothing else. But at least for this moment in time, I do not see anything changing, other than one person and one person being more present while the vast majority continue to split-task.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Mar 19 - 10:13 AM

I agree, Saul.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Mar 19 - 03:24 PM

if cell phones are mostly the cause and the gateway

Oh they are a serious cause, much as talking to passengers is. It is all a matter of degree. But you don't need to visualise a passenger.

I have seen videos of crashes where the driver was fiddling with a cassette. If it takes yer visual cortex it is that much more of an accident waiting to happen.

You wait till driverless cars go mainstream. Drivers will force the autoauto to give way, suddenly. The computer on the lap will be on the floor, while the driver will speed away oblivious. And it won't always be a driver, I can foresee kids playing chicken with driverless cars, until, one time, it isn't a driverless car, brainless maybe on their phone! And who do you blame then?

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: BobL
Date: 08 Mar 19 - 03:16 AM

Drivers will force the autoauto to give way
No different from forcing a human driver to give way, and just as open to a dangerous driving charge.

Incidentally multi-tasking is possible given the right tasks: ironing keeps me in one place and my hands occupied, while freeing my mind to listen to classical music.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Jos
Date: 08 Mar 19 - 03:48 AM

Listening to classical music is a 'task'?

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Mar 19 - 05:12 AM

It can be if it's Stockhausen...

Cars are ridiculously easy to drive these days. In my dad's old Vauxhall Viva, the car I passed my test in fifty years ago, if you were doing seventy you knew you were going fast. The car didn't feel especially stable, it was noisy, the suspension wasn't great and the steering was a bit iffy. The roads were often not up to much either. The M6 was an eight-mile stretch of two-lane dual carriageway cutting out Preston, and other than that the roads were an adventure. Driving took up all your attention. Modern cars at seventy give you the illusion that you're hardly moving at all, and it's quiet and smooth and all the controls are so easy. You can be deluded into thinking that your brain has plenty of capacity left for doing things such as making phone calls. It's true that other activities can be equally distracting - kids in the back, channel-surfing the radio, eating a sandwich, etc - but that's no reason to add another entirely optional distraction such as using a phone. Actually, when it comes to dangerous distractions, nothing comes close to selecting and changing a CD.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 19 - 09:52 PM

That's a very good point Steve.

And they all go as well. I have this feeling that I own a luxury car, because you stick the key in and it works.

Actually its an old nissan Almera, the electronic key doesn't work any more. 120 thou on the clock. Dents everywhere.

But it feels like luxury to me. Because. Theres a heater, a radio, its automatic, and it always starts.
This is unimagined luxury if you'd been driving fifty years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Mar 19 - 10:57 PM

Two people I knew from my congregation were killed in their car when a young man in a pickup truck crossed the center line and collided head-on with them. There was a DVD player on his dashboard, but when it went to court the defense attorney argued that the State's technical folk had not proved that the surviving driver had been watching it at the time of impact.

There have been cases of truck drivers and railroad engineers crashing due to distraction while texting. Usually the data from texting is time stamped and easy to relate to actual time of accident.

I see people all the time on the phone in their cars, meaning they are handling a phone with a hand, that should be on a steering wheel or shifter, against the side of their head. While I'm not a fan of people doing this, it is legal to place and receive calls while driving in Alaska. Driving while distracted is illegal, hence I guess if you're on the phone and get in an accident, you are distracted. Texting is considered a distraction, so I don't envy the cops trying to see through auto and SUV windows, many of which are tinted too dark to see inside anyway, and figure out what a driver is doing.

I do not know how many people are hauled over by the traffic police. Our police are pretty conscientious and I'll bet they are doing this when they can; I used to be annoyed by people sitting in their cars in parking lots, when I'm looking for a parking space myself, then I realize many are practising safe phone use and that I need the exercise of a slightly longer walk anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 06:00 AM


No different from forcing a human driver to give way, and just as open to a dangerous driving charge.


couldn't disagree more. Aggressive drivers have always been with us, but the mentality is that they would not be offending a brain, but a computer. And that computer will (they tell us) be far more vigilant, and faster and HAVE to respond. The philosophical answer to pre-existing idiots ignores the habituation of everyone to conditions. You drive to the norm, and in big cities the norm is less co-operative and more egocentric. Pace of life etc. If you don't believe, try living in the Cotswolds, Londoners seem to want to, in their second homes.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 06:33 AM

If judges had the sense to remove (permanently) the licence from anyone who used a phone while driving… if insurance companies had the sense to refuse to insure anyone who used a phone while driving… if employers of professional drivers had the sense to refuse to employ anyone who used a phone while driving, we'd have a much safer road system.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: JennieG
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 06:37 AM

Thompson......google "percentage of unlicensed drivers" for some sobering statistics. Taking someone's licence away does not necessarily stop them from driving.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 04:49 PM

if insurance companies had the sense to refuse to insure anyone

Well there is a sort of "refuse light". Aviva make a great splash of their type of insurance that includes a black box to record speeds and location. The accompanying carrot is lower insurance premiums. And There are still car insurance adverts that expound the virtues of dashcams. Now all we have to do is connect the two and add phones so that any phone usage can be correlated.

And I can prove dashcams improve driving, mine made me far more conscious of road speed limits. Until it packed-up. But get a good one, the resolution - especially in low light levels may not be good enough to prove the other guy was using a phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: BobL
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 03:02 AM

May not be good enough... even to read number plates, especially at night. If you're thinking of getting a dashcam, first look for "Which?" in your library's reference section: the Oct 2018 issue will tell you.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 09:45 AM

I guess it's about 60 years ago now that my Dad got the added luxury of a RADIO (wireless?) in his new(er) car. Much to my sister's and my disappointment he would never have it on while driving, as he said it was a distraction. My Dad's occupation? Insurance branch manager....
He was also one of the first people to actually use seat belts.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 07:01 PM

I was wandering about in Cheltenham (had to be here) and noticed a woman driving (single handed) looking at her lap, happytapping. And it was BM Bloody W. And it was a Chelsea Tractor.

Didn't hear a bang in the distance so ........... lucky this time.

Given that I walk a lot of roads that have no footpath, looking for Bench Marks & my attention to detail is wound up to 11. For this very reason.
I invariably stand on what verge is available looking at them as they pass, and less then 1/2 acknowledge my effort to not slow them down. Yea, Yea it is in my interests to play safe because of speeds these days, and there is not enough time to look behind to see if cars need to pass.

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mossback
Date: 12 Mar 19 - 10:05 AM

'Boulevards of death': why pedestrian road fatalities are surging in the US

The study cannot point to a lone factor in the surge, but cites driver distraction because of increased phone use at the wheel and the growing popularity of SUVs [Chelsea Tractors] over smaller family cars.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/12/boulevards-of-death-why-pedestrian-road-fatalities-are-surging-in-the-us

Subject: RE: BS: Phone related traffic deaths
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Mar 19 - 04:32 AM

Some of those pedestrians might be on the phone themselves, or worse, looking at the phone and happytapping.


phone usage is significant. As I posted, the usage is 80% of the distraction, only 20% due to holding the phone. American research.