This is a Daily Mail headline today.
How your hi-tech car dashboard can kill you: Distracted drivers blamed for thousands of deaths
Maybe a typical exaggeration, but a hint of truth?
tinyurl.com/nxyergt
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 1 May 15 at 09:09
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Or is "I was distracted by my dashboard officer" a euphemism for "Actually, in truth, I was distracted by my smart phone but I'm not going to admit that am I ?"
Every single day I see people staring down below their steering wheels while driving erratically. Unless there is a sudden new fashion for in car onanism I've not heard about it would seem pretty clear that they are spending a lot of time peering at their phones.
Only yesterday there was a young woman following me in stop start traffic clearly engaged in Facetweeting or whatever and how she avoided slamming into the back of my car on several occasions defies the law of averages.
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I well remember 40 years ago when I was driving home from work having done an hours overtime (and booked two) I hit an elderly couple in their stationary Mini with my Zephyr :( because I was looking at my windscreen wipers which weren't working properly.
At least driving a LEC would offer a modicum of protection from morons, like me.
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Even if it is a bit OTT, I think there is something in information overload.
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>> Only yesterday there was a young woman following me in stop start traffic clearly engaged
>> in Facetweeting or whatever and how she avoided slamming into the back of my car
>> on several occasions defies the law of averages.
Funny how they mostly don't though, isn't it?
Humans are actually quite good at stuff like this. If phoning and texting was as dangerous as the nannies suggest, then I don't think road deaths would have halved - an incredible statistic - since 2000.
Following the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, road deaths fell by 13.8%, 12.5%, and 16.7% in 2008/9/10. (they rose by 2.8% in 2011, then fell by 7.7% in 2012, and 2.3% in 2013).
That said, I do not think fiddling with a phone while driving is a good idea.
The most noticeable effect of people facebooking etc., while clearly giving less attention to their driving, is very poor driving that inconveniences others and may well cause more minor knocks - going stupidly slowly, being in the wrong lane, not setting off when the lights change, poor signalling, weaving and so on.
I am happy with the current law on mobile phone use - and undoubtedly it will save a small number of lives, but it clearly isn't lethal per se.
Source of stats: www.gov.uk/government/publications/annual-road-fatalities
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Funny how they mostly don't though, isn't it?
Not really. Spend a day smoking and it probably won't kill you, but smoke every day for fifty years and it probably will. Similarly, you can cross the road without looking and probably get away with it, but that doesn't make it a good habit to get into.
In other words, it's not about the outcome of any one piece of risky behaviour, but about your chance of sustaining that risky behaviour over a long period without causing an accident. Humph's Bookfacers are trusting to luck, and that's not good.
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>> In other words, it's not about the outcome of any one piece of risky behaviour,
>> but about your chance of sustaining that risky behaviour over a long period without causing
>> an accident. Humph's Bookfacers are trusting to luck, and that's not good.
Your comment is valid for a given individual, just as the 100 year old who smokes 40 a day does not signify that smoking is good for you.
But it doesn't apply here because there is a very large number of examples of the risky behaviour every day, let alone every year, so the related accident rate is going to be a very reliable statistic.
Of course we don't have that statistic, just the overall KSI figures - but there is no sign there that a single new cause has moved the total numbers upwards materially given the astonishing improvement in the period that facebook and smartphones have saturated the mass market
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>> Of course we don't have that statistic, just the overall KSI figures - but there
>> is no sign there that a single new cause has moved the total numbers upwards
>> materially given the astonishing improvement in the period that facebook and smartphones have saturated the
>> mass market
Indeed the numbers simply do not stack up.
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They will not be included in the KSI figures but I would guess that the bodyshop trade is doing well from the non injury bumps dings and bent metal
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>> They will not be included in the KSI figures but I would guess that the
>> bodyshop trade is doing well from the non injury bumps dings and bent metal
Entirely possible. The facebookers are a royal PITA, and it's often possible to pick them out when you follow them - confirmed when you overtake, or at the traffic lights.
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>> >> They will not be included in the KSI figures but I would guess that
>> the
>> >> bodyshop trade is doing well from the non injury bumps dings and bent metal
If they were my insurance premiums would be going up to cover the increased risk.
They aint.
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>> If they were my insurance premiums would be going up to cover the increased risk.
>>
>> They aint.
Once again guessing, but many are probably in the £500 cash only range. No insurance involvement.
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>> Once again guessing, but many are probably in the £500 cash only range. No insurance
>> involvement.
You wont get much in the way of bodywork repairs for 500 quid these days.
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And insurance premiums are generally driven up or down by the broad trend in accidents and injuries, so you can't isolate one causative factor. Injuries are what cost insurers big money, not the occasional £1,000 bumper respray.
Even so, Z's insurance - and mine - would probably be cheaper still but for distracted drivers bending other people's cars.
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Too many other factors influence the KSI values - most significantly the increasing crashworthiness of cars in the last 20 years - to draw any conclusions on this one contributing factor. My guess is that for every lorry driver who makes the headlines by mowing down a motorway queue while busy texting, there are a hundred damage-only shunts in queues and car parks that wouldn't have happened if the driver's mind had been on the task.
Road safety is about managing small risks. Our texting driver might get away with it 99 times out of 100, but if I hit something once in every hundred outings, I'd be a very unhappy - and much poorer - driver.
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To return to the original topic, I hope I never have to own a vehicle where things are controlled by a touch screen. They are indeed a distraction, not to mention a potentially lethal menace. My friend's Citroen C4 Picasso has TWO screens. Not only did he have to have two training sessions at the dealer's when he bought it, there is still an almost irresistible temptation to look at the screens while touching the 'buttons'.
It's all a way for manufacturers to cut costs while persuading the dunderheads they have something to boast about.
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>> It's all a way for manufacturers to cut costs while persuading the dunderheads they have
>> something to boast about.
Its primarily a showroom "wow and gasp" feature. But we digress, none of this is caused by car dashboards, or even car makers, its mostly people with hand half (or fixed by a sucker) mobile devices.
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My little Yaris has a touch screen media / phone / multi function trip computer / satnav / setup for auto lights and wipers and probably more that I have not found or could not care less about. At least the phone and media can be controlled with steering wheel buttons. As it is a shopping trolley come mobility scooter a posh car must be a nightmare. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 1 May 15 at 12:38
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The future is ?
Try a Google search for Tesla dashboard display and have a look at the selection of the possible options re the display.
SWMBO would not hack it, in either sence of the word.:-(
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>>Citroen C4 Picasso has TWO screens.
At least being a French car it wont actually be on the road all that often.
:o}
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Dashboard distractions. - Runfer D'Hills
