Phone Addicts Are the New Drunk Drivers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zendrive.com/2019-distracted-driving-study-phone-addicts-are-the-new-drunk-drivers/ <comment><USER2> As others have said, as a motorcyclist, my number one concern on the road is a person using their mobile device while driving. I am less worried about road rage (which is still a top concern for me) than distracted drivers.

I see it literally hundreds of times a day. People are driving their cars at over 70mph while texting. They use instagram and facebook at stoplights. They text or call while driving too fast down residential roads. They cause traffic delays because they don't accelerate at a green light for many seconds after the car in front of them has.

I have seen them hit other cars and narrowly miss pedestrians in crosswalks, completely oblivious half the time that they nearly murdered someone.

If I pull up next to them and tell them to put their phone down by pantomime, half the time they flip me off, laugh, or lay on their horn. They do not think they are doing anything wrong and that I am the asshole for telling them to put the phone down.

Distracted drivers are murderers. Distracted drivers are guilty of reckless endangerment. Distracted drivers need to be punished with prejudice. It is statistically more dangerous than driving intoxicated.

<comment><USER3> I emigrated from the UK to USA last September and the number of people I see on the freeway here with their phone in their hands is a constant source of amazement for me.

As a keen road cyclist in the UK I actually have bought an off-road bike because I simply don't trust US drivers.

In fact, the standard of driving here is frankly appalling. Tailgating and speeding is rampant. Lane surfing is rife. Couple that with just generally less safety street furniture at intersections and the laughably easy driving tests it's frightening really.

People say self driving cars are a danger, frequently the media report every Autopilot crash but what about the hundreds every day caused by some idiot texting? IMHO the sooner we take the distracted meatbag out of the driving equation, the better. I'm a car guy who just did a 2000 mile roadtrip to the Tail of the Dragon but this has to stop.

More enforcement and stricter penalties. Social stigma might be more powerful than this though.

<comment><USER4> I am guilty of this. What I wish to see is a better device that doesn't distract the attention from the road.

A better voice input so I don't have to type.

The biggest distraction is a notification comes and you want to see what it is.

But you are right. The best soln is not to use your phone.

<comment><USER5> Honest question. Why do you feel you need any device when driving? Other than for navigation I suppose. As a confessed user do you actually feel it's important to have access to a device while you drive?

<comment><USER4> I like to be connected I guess. Waiting in traffic sucks, it's boring as hell. My commute is 1.5 hours each way.

To be honest, I want a self lane following car. Reliably keep distance from car in front, keep the current lane, don't exceed speed limit. Don't bumps into objects, stop on traffic lights

5 simple things. I feel like this should be doable reliably in the next decade.

I don't want to drive. I don't have another more convenient option.

<comment><USER3> I have all these features in a 2016 Golf GTI (except traffic light one). The future isn't that far away for the masses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a cyclist. Over the past 5 years or so I've learned to check inside of people's cars to see if they have a phone in their hands. If they do, I try to keep as much distance between myself and them as possible.

Until we change the incentives, distracted driving is very likely to remain a problem. Right now there's a lot of talk but very little action. I live in Austin, and I've spoken with the police about distracted driving after nearly being hit by a driver who ran a red light because they were distracted by their phone. (I spoke with them afterward.) The police tell me that they periodically do distracted driving enforcement operations, but only in school zones so that they get double fines. I've never seen a single distracted driving enforcement operation in Austin, but I've gone through cyclist stop sign enforcement twice. It would be interesting to see the statistics here. How many people are ticketed for distracted driving every year?

<comment><USER7> It's trivial to mandate a phone be designed so that it can't be used in a moving car or for a certain amount of time since it has experienced significant acceleration. In fact you could ban certain apps like txting and calling during these times. I guess you could even mandate tech to help the phone figure out where in the car the person is sitting and only disable their phone.

<comment><USER8> It would be hard to filter out the false positives. I'm almost always a passenger or riding a train. Locking out my phone during either of those situations would be a problem.

<comment><USER6> I can recall a girl playing Pokemon Go on a train. The app seemed to detect the motion and asked her if she was driving every 10 minutes or so.

<comment><USER9> It's quite frequent even if you're standing still. GPS drift, noise and corrections cause a lot of false positives for movement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> DUI and driving while using your phone should have equal punishment.

I'm not advocating drinking and driving, but phone use is "no harm, no foul" right now. On the other hand you can drive without crashing into anyone but if you've had two glasses of wine with dinner, you can get charged with a crime.

<comment><USER11> Cellphone use while driving is a primary offense in Ohio, meaning you can get pulled over solely got that and receive a citation

<comment><USER12> A citation is nothing. A couple drinks will put you in jail, cost you your license for a while, maybe your job, and thousands of dollars.

<comment><USER13> My wife got her start as an attorney in the U.S. and her first criminal cases as defense counsel were for drunk divers. It ended up driving (no pun) her away from defense work, because these guys were inveterate offenders and never got more than a slap on the wrist. The penalties on the books for DUI and the penalties actually administered are often miles apart. That may have changed in the last decade though, I can't say.

<comment><USER14> What do you consider a slap on the wrist? Everyone I know that's had a DUI lost their license for a min amount of time with exponential increases for repeat offenders (one month, then two years, then 10 years). And that's only the ones that weren't involved in a collision.

<comment><USER15> Lol, a month for the first offence?

Seriously in Denmark you get 20 days suspended prison if your are above 2.0 for a first offense. If you are above 1.2 you lose your license for a minimum of 3 years. If below 2, your fine is "only" your net salary for the month....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was hit on the highway by a phone user who almost killed me and my parents. Speed differential was 55mph. That is, we were completely stopped on the highway and she drove for something like a quarter mile and hit us, leaving me with nerve damage and severe lower back pain. Luckily rehab went stellar and although I have some residual burning/stinging nerve damage, I can walk, run, play sports, go to the gym - you wouldn't even have known that I spent some time in a neck brace, cast, and back pain so back I could hardly leave my bed (but it also hurt just as bad to lay in bed) after almost being killed by the distracted driver.

Oh yeah, the concussion too. That was pretty rough as well.

<comment><USER17> How did you know she was distracted by her phone? I'm asking not because I don't believe you, but because my wife got rear ended about a week ago, and when the person got out of his car, he had his cell phone in his hand, but that's what you'd expect after a collision (calling family/insurance/police/etc).

Did you have to go through a discovery process or?

What happened to the distracted driver?

<comment><USER16> To add to it - the driver was ALSO drunk (well, above the legal limit) and also, get this, a nurse.

I was told by my lawyer that the police investigation concluded that she was guilty of DUI but that due her statements the cell phone was implicated as the reason. She was above .08 barely, but she was presumably not drunk enough to drive for a quarter mile or more without looking up at the road.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's my test for phone addiction (for men): If you are pissing into a urinal and need to look at your phone during those 15 seconds, you have a problem. And I see this a _lot_.

A scary game: when in stop and go traffic, have a look at the person behind you. Are their eyes on the road, or their lap? In my experience, 7 out of 10 are looking at their lap, with a quick glance up every 5 seconds or so.

I spend plenty of time on my phone, but geez, have some phone free moments every now and then.

<comment><USER19> I don't think your test is all that good. If I'm out with friends, I try to consciously avoid using my phone when we're together so that I'm present and so that they know I value their presence. Those 15 seconds at the urinal are often the best time to check notifications before getting back to phone-free socializing.

Agree with your other points though.

<comment><USER20> Why do notifications need to be checked?

<comment><USER19> To see if any are important enough to require action?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is extremely bad. In Portugal I don't cross the road if the person is using a phone, unless they fully stop of course. Yet this is a problem so big that even people walking cross roads with their faces glued to their phones.

It happened to me more than once almost getting into an accident, both while walking or driving because the other party is distracted by a smartphone instead of paying attention to driving or walking. People cross road like complete maniacs while using smartphones, luckily I have quick response time to brake the car, but there are other people that might not have such luck. I am afraid that in the future when my response time increases this might become a problem, even if I lower the velocity.

I never use my phone while driving, not even in stop signs or red lights. Yet it is so socially acceptable to do it these days it's disgusting. I hate this so much I make an simple website to try to raise awareness[1]. I haven't dedicated much time promoting it because it was just a small side project to experiment with TailwindCSS, but I might as this problem affects even my family...

[1] [https://github.com/mig4ng/2min.pink](https://github.com/mig4ng/2min.pink)

<comment><USER22> What is the big deal with phone use at a red light? It will, at worst, hold up traffic slightly.

<comment><USER23> What should possibly need your attention when stopped at a red light?

If it's something frivolous then it can wait. If it's important then are you really able to compartmentalize it? Will you be able to put the conversation out of your mind, or ghost your chat partner as soon as traffic starts moving?

<comment><USER22> Are you saying people shouldn't be driving if they have something on their mind or a passenger they're chatting with?

<comment><USER24> Interestingly, chatting with a physical passenger in the car is an entirely different level of distraction, from trying to chat with someone you can't see on the other end of the phone. For some reason (invoking visual synthesis to imagine how they are responding?) the phone case takes quite a bit more mental effort.

Try putting 'blinders' on when talking to a passenger and driving normally. E.g. put a hand up so you can't see them, even out of the corner of your eye. This A/B test (for me anyway) ups the mental effort 2X or more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> As a motorcyclist, this has become my primary concern on the roads in the past few years. I constantly and actively check for drivers using their phones. If I can see their eyes or heads glancing up and down, I get far away. If they're having trouble staying in their lane, I get far away. At night, if their faces are illuminated in a blue glow, they're holding their phones and I get far away. I use those techniques in addition to all the other safety measures you get taught by the MSF. If I didn't love riding so much, I'd quit. Seriously. It's more dangerous than it's ever been. You have to be so diligent. But on two wheels, an open road without distracted drivers is still as glorious as it has ever been.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is "old man yells at cloud" area, but seriously - why can we not just leave our phones in our pocket until we get to our destination? What's that important?

<comment><USER27> My wife expects timely logistical updates.

<comment><USER28> Your wife's desire for timely updates comes second to the legal (and, hopefully, moral) requirement of not recklessly and needlessly endangering those around you while operating a motor vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> My neighbor was killed walking on sidewalk in a parking lot. Driver was staring at phone in his lap and missed turn, plowed directly into him. Put your goddamn phone away... and trying to "hide it" in your lap is worse than just holding it up in windshield.

<comment><USER30> Unintended consequences strikes again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I ride a bike in London traffic and you can tell which drivers are on phones from quite some distance. I think when police stop them they are mystified as to how they got caught - they genuinely don't realise just how all-over-the- place they are.

</comment><comment><USER32> I worked at T-Mobile and did some work on this very subject our studies showed that people are so addicted that unless there is a threat of jail time or drivers license suspension people will not put down their phones.

<comment><USER33> I don't understand why people see the possibility of a drivers license suspension as being worse than the increased risk of vehicular manslaughter.

One is a few months of decreased mobility. The other is an entire life.

<comment><USER34> They're not convinced that it impairs their driving.

Consider that a plurality, if not a majority of the population is convinced that they're efficient at multi-tasking, and specifically that they can perform each task as well as in isolation. But we know that almost nobody multitasks well, period, and absolutely not with equivalent performance.

<comment><USER35> Don't forget that a vast majority of the population thinks that they are above average at $TASK, no matter what it is

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In this day and age of really great machine learning I find that most people refuse to use voice services unless they are forced to do so (usually because of injury). Trying to tap out a message at 80km/h on a 5" screen is pretty fucking futile. But most distracted drivers will attempt to do it anyway.

Here's a neat trick, just say, "Hey Siri* Send a message to $firstname $lastname's $phone. Tell them I'm [on my way, 5 minutes away, picking up milk, buying pizza]"

* Or whatever platform you use. I'm an iOS user.

<comment><USER37> I tried, but Siri is still really bad at speech recognition whenever I try it.

<comment><USER38> If your accent doesn't match the country you are in, change Siri's language to your native one. As a British person living in the USA, if I don't set Siri to British, she has a terrible time understanding me, but it works fine on British mode.

<comment><USER39> Not always; if you set it to Scotland, the phone just complains that it can't understand you either in angrily incomprehensible brogue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is taken as an obvious truth, but when you look at actual collision data, there seems to be no effect whatsoever.

In fact, our roads have continued to become safer in the 10 or so years since the release of the iPhone.

<comment><USER36> Car fatalities are down because the passenger compartment has become safer. Pedestrian fatalities are up because idiots are still plowing into them [0]

[0] [https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/522085503/2016-saw-a- record-i...](https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/522085503/2016-saw-a-record- increase-in-pedestrian-deaths)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Human drivers are becoming less road worthy. Full autonomous drive can't come soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER42> I was driving about 3mph in traffic texting my wife and did 3500 dollars damage to my car. I'm glad I learned my lesson the easy way instead of killing someone.

 _Don 't text and drive no matter what, it's easy to pull over if it's necessary!_

<comment><USER43> Sorry that happened. Thanks for sharing.

What damage on your vehicle caused the high cost of repairs? Just surprisingly high for a 3~ MpH impact.

<comment><USER44> A lot of cars today have body panels that have to be replaced instead of repaired. Add in any sort of special paint color and a single panel can run $1k to make like new. Side swipe something that runs across a few panels and it can quickly add up.

<comment><USER36> I backed out a parking spot and into some guy speeding through the lot. Me, a bit of rubber on the bumper that I wiped off with a magic eraser. Him, front quarter panel and both passenger doors had to be replaced. I was pissed off about the unfairness of it all. That him driving reckless and me being in the wrong place made me at fault for thousands of dollars in damage.

I'm not surprised to see a car accident with wildly different results on both vehicles.

<comment><USER43> Aren't you at fault though even per your own version?

You pulled into a driving lane that the other vehicle was already in. Your justification for why you shouldn't be at fault is that he was "speeding" but there's no set speed limit in a parking lot, and you're meant to verify it is clear before locomotion.

Plus if you witnessed them "speeding" you would have known you were pulling out in front of them, which makes you in the wrong anyway. If you didn't know they were oncoming you couldn't have known they were "speeding." It doesn't make basic logical sense that you could have both known they were speeding AND pulled out into them, because to know that you would have had eyes on their car.

<comment><USER36> Yes, I'm at fault simply for backing out into the lane as far as the insurer is concerned. I'm also at fault for not having eyes in superposition. I can't simultaneously see out of my rear left and rear right.

All to say, you weren't there and don't know what happened. And I'll leave it at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Matthew Walker's book _Why We Sleep_ makes a clear case that drowsy driving is worse than drink driving, too.

So that would mean drunk driving is actually the _third_ leading cause of impaired driving damage.

Why is the third cause villified, but not the first two?

<comment><USER45> > So that would mean drunk driving is actually the third leading cause of > impaired driving damage.

That's a hard "citation needed" claim you're making.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Peculiar to blame the phone for killing people and not the several ton object that crashes into them.

Of course people should stay off their phones, but there are plenty of ways that people can make mistakes driving, and the best way to make pedestrians safe is to limit their interactions with cars.

We need to fundamentally back away from the automobile oriented design of our cities. This is the real solution, not doubling down on car infrastructure and hoping that some vaporware self driving software will save us.

</comment><comment><USER47> I had just started actually reading TFA because this topic interests me, I was skimming past some infographic of "phone addicts spend x% not looking at the road" when - pop! - a little distraction popped up in the bottom right corner offering "hey <domainname> wanna chat". A distraction, a creepy "personalized" one no less, on an article about distractions. Too meta for me, I ctrl-w'd outta there.

<comment><USER48> It got me too. I've now disabled JS for that site in uMatrix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Texting while driving and drunk driving should be treated as the SAME offense.

<comment><USER50> It's possible to go from composition to focused in the span of time it takes to move the hand (and eyes) from the phone back to driving mode.

It isn't possible to become 'not drunk' that quickly.

I rank drunk driving as worse than dealing with screaming kids as worse than writing something at a red-light as worse than just reading a preview on the screen for a measured quantity of time when in a situation that is safe enough to mentally relax and not be at 100% focus is at-hand.

<comment><USER51> The article suggest that this isn't true. You can't regain situational awareness instantaneously:

> The researchers specifically found that cell phone users are:

> \- 9 percent slower to deploy the brakes

> \- 19 percent slower to return to normal speed after braking

<comment><USER50> That isn't relevant to the context I'm talking about. Any kind of actual composition of text should only happen while stopped; E.G. at a red light (and ideally NOT while first in line).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Its disappointing to see that so many voices in this discussion are focused on self-driving cars and the like as the savoir solutions - I always wish there would be some discussion of ways to help people be less reliant on cars, so they spend less time driving, are less likely to get distracted while doing it, and everybody is both safer _and_ living in a less car-centric world.

We are - realistically - decades away from outright bans on human-operated vehicles at any real scale... so why not try to reign in the ever-expanding sprawl and car-centric planning that encourages/requires such widespread use of vehicles by distracted people, drunk people, etc in the first place? If its not alcohol, its phones. If its not phones, its makeup, or breakfast, or a fight with a passenger... more people who can walk, take transit, bike, etc means fewer deadly distractions or impairments.

</comment><comment><USER53> this new world of connectedness really has some major downsides.

distracted driving.

instagram killing natural spaces from lack of crowd control.

decreased mental wellbeing and increased suicide rates.

facebook privacy concerns.

somebody needs to tackle these social crises, since the incentive is not there for the companies to address it themselves.

</comment><comment><USER54> During the T9 days, was texting while driving statistically safer, or merely not a problem due to general low adoption/addiction? It feels like touchscreens in general are horrible input devices, which we compensate for by devoting an awful lot of attention to using them.

I'm not asking because I'm personally interested in "safe" ways to text and drive or whatever, just really to contextualize. It also seems highly relevant to the crop of cars being released with touchscreens and soft controls for what have traditionally been tactile interfaces.

<comment><USER55> > During the T9 days, was texting while driving statistically safer

I have fond memories of being in high school and texting one-handed in class on my Blackberry without looking. Not quite as ideal as T9 for one-handed use, but I was essentially stupid for the few moments I spent doing that. My brain was elsewhere. The problem with distracted driving isn't purely vision (although that's a factor). The mental context-switch is a huge problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I am seeing users on their mobiles very frequently when I see through the back mirror while driving in the city where I live. I assume this is mostly WhatsApp use.

Phone and software makers have an unique opportunity to save lives on the road by taking measures to prevent this terrible behaviour. They'll be rewarded by getting some of the public trust back, and seeing they are optimizing around public good as opposed to eyeballs.

A good example is Android Auto, which prevents the driver from typing on the car's screen while driving.

<comment><USER57> The problem is always differentiating between driver and passenger.

<comment><USER56> I was thinking the same thing, but for example, you could put black boxes recording phone usage for the police to access in case of an accident or random pull-over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> 1) front and rear-facing dash cams to defend against damage claims

2) configure cars to track phone usage, time-stamped, and downloadable thru the OBD port. If driver is sole occupant, some use of phone would be provable. No good for off-line activity, like games. Obvious privacy issues like other OBD data.

3) Pedestrians need an app for the "self-walking phone" with sub-1-meter location accuracy that flashes green man, or yellow or red hand when phone- obsessed user is about to step off curb into cross-walk or traffic.

<comment><USER56> 2) Actually the black box could be in the phone itself. Could be actually be implemented in existing phones via software upgrade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I wonder if this could be solved (or at least made drastically better) with insurance incentives + technology.

Idea would be reward drivers willing to ditch their phones while driving entirely, by having drastically reduced car insurance rates.

I'm not sure how it would work, but there would be a system in the car that would verify there is no active phone. Clearly there are a lot of details to be worked out both on the technological, insurances pricing, and privacy sides, but it feels like this could be a way forward.

</comment><comment><USER60> Having the self driving features on a car such as Tesla auto pilot has really made this problem worse. People rely on their cars to stop in time, although this is not always the case

<comment><USER61> Self driving features is the solution of the phone addicts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I wonder if there is not some technological solution that can be built into smartphones to prevent this from happening. I realize that they are doing double duty as GPS & music, but imagine if your phone could detect that you are in the driver's seat and the car is moving and disable any application but the GPS. I know this would be hard, but it doesn't seem like it would be "self-driving car" hard and would have immediate societal benefit.

<comment><USER38> Apple's CarPlay heavily restricts what you can do while moving - you can only browse through lists that are short, and you can't type anything. These functions are replaced with talking to Siri, which it is assumed you can do with your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Driving my car (phone in pocket, do-not-disturb on):

Yesterday: Passed a college-aged kid on a (edit: motorized) scooter, no helmet, going about 45 mph, reading his phone.

Today: Passed a middle-school-aged kid (edit: on a bicycle), with a helmet, going about 3 mph, reading his phone.

Not sure which earns his Darwin Award first. It's a problem, either way.

<comment><USER64> I don't know if I follow, are you saying the second example is a problem? If you are, it's not clear to me why that is.

And are you sure the scooter was going 45mph? That seems unrealistically fast given that even on my bike (which is probably much more stable) achieving 20+mph in NYC is pretty uncommon.

<comment><USER63> And yes, the kid on his bike is a problem. More of a problem, in some ways. This was in my neighborhood, so speeds were low all around. But I had to time passing him very carefully, and I was very aware of how much he was weaving around the road, however slowly. And this kid will be on a scooter next. Then in a car. And having his phone available at all times will be even more second-nature to him. Maybe he'll get lucky, and truly autonomous vehicles will be a thing before he gets himself killed or badly injured.

Maybe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Isn't using a phone while driving illegal in most countries now?

Here in Australia you can only touch one if it is in one of those GPS holder things, with ~$400 fines for non-compliance.

The police put a few plain clothed ppl at traffic lights and raise thousands. Sure it's revenue raising, but the message gets out pretty quickly.

<comment><USER66> Not sure how quickly that message is getting out, mobile phone use while driving is very common here. It's _really_ noticeable when you're on a motorbike, your view is clearer, but also being a little higher you can see the phone on people's laps as they drive along looking down at them.

<comment><USER65> I'm a cyclist. I know how bad it is, but ppl know that they are doing the wrong thing now at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> In The Netherlands, even texting while riding your bicycle will likely be outlawed in a few months [1]. Personally I think this is overreach, akin to forbidding pedestrians to use their phone while walking the sidewalk: they're risking (mostly) their own life, not endangering the lives of others. (Yes, I got hit by a distracted bicyclist once in my life, and many many more close calls.)

[1] [https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/fiets/vraag-en- antw...](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/fiets/vraag-en-antwoord/mag- ik-bellen-en-naar-muziek-luisteren-op-de-fiets)

</comment><comment><USER68> Many here who work for companies like Facebook probably have blood on your hands as a results of your pursuits to "increase engagement".

</comment><comment><USER69> I'm wondering if these aren't the same people. The ones that, if not texting, are driving while putting on makeup, ogling every lady in a dress, turning into oncoming traffic, popping ambien, or driving drunk.

It seems like a personality type that's generally careless and self important. Texting isn't much more distracting than the thousands of other unsafe things people do.

</comment><comment><USER49> Additionally, imposing strict consequences (like a ban from driving, loss of license, etc.) for phone addicts kills two birds with one stone: not only does it save lives, it has the potential to remove A LOT of people from their cars and onto public transportation which would drastically alleviate traffic congestion.

</comment><comment><USER70> tl;dr: I was hit by a driver using his phone, I was found guilty.

Last week I was changing lane in a very slow traffic traffic jam, I turn the left sign, the driver completely stops. I assume this as he giving me space to enter, I slowly enter. He then starts driving forward slowly, he starts approaching, I'm puzzled. I realize he is driving with his phone on his face. Completely unaware that I'm in his lane. He hits. We talk, he starts saying I jumped in front of him, I just tell him he did not see me because he was on the phone. He agrees and he apologizes. We exchange information and go back home. It was only some scratches in our cars.

Later I do the insurance claim (we both had the same insurance company), and I discover that in his report he omits about the phone. I now I have to prove that he was one the phone and I have not jumped with my car in front of him. I could not prove that. I do have a front dashcam but only a very good and specifically placed dashcam would capture such proof. The insurance found me guilty.

I don't know what was the lesson here, maybe always get a police report. Contacting the police at the moment had not crossed my head because it was was not a big deal, the driver sounded reasonable (apart from the fact he was using the phone while driving), and there was something going on that was causing the traffic jam and required the police in the first place.

<comment><USER6> Sorry to hear about this. I ride a bike with a helmet cam and I started narrating observations unlikely to be caught by camera. I'll often say something like "distracted driver" when a distracted driver is nearby. It's not perfect, but it might help in situations like this.

I have found from experience that reading off people's license plate numbers tends to make them nervous, but that hasn't stopped me from doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I have Personalised licence plates that read "AFK".

It used to be a nerdy geek joke... but these days I see it as a bit of a statement on my and (what others) driving habits should be.

</comment><comment><USER72> In a few years, non-automatically-driven cars will be the New Drunk Drivers.

</comment><comment><USER73> Cars and phones already have the sensors and comms to be able to curb this behavior, at least some of the time. Your car and phone "know" (potentially) when you're using them at the same time. Is there a technological fix? And if so, do we want to use it?

</comment><comment><USER61> Good thing we are on the verge of realization of self driving car.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think there's a legitimate difference between a quick glance at a mobile and actually trying to //compose// something on it. Even speech to text can be poor enough that if it isn't dead simple it should wait until stopped.

Edit: If you disagree maybe you would like to reply with how and thus form an actual discussion? I'm suggesting the split second shift of focus equivalent to changing a radio-station or disc track is equally as distracting as a quick glance at something and indicating that I /agree/ anything past that should be a zero-motion dependent event.

<comment><USER74> No, there isn't. Have your phone read messages aloud when in the car, but just reading something is not really that much better than trying to answer. Any time your eyes leave the road/mirrors you have a chance to miss something crucial. And yes, interacting with the entertainment system is just as bad, that's why there are steering wheels with controls to change the track, to enable the driver to do so without taking their eyes off the road.

Around here you get a fine and a slowly-decaying record of doing something dangerous for any usage of a phone while in a car with the engine running. That might seem too harsh, but I really think it isn't. If you've endangered someone or damaged something while doing so it's also an immediate ban from driving for a month. The only sad thing is that police has to catch you doing this and that's rare.

<comment><USER50> If the police are able to catch someone, then by definition they were distracted. If a driver can see law enforcement (which should be clearly marked as such, not some stealth car) then the distraction is only in the minds of others, as enough attention is being put on the road to avoid accidents and other issues.</comment></comment></comment>


Eliza Release Trailier [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.zachtronics.com/eliza/ <comment> chupa-chups [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA)

Thanks for the downvote @dyukqu. You just re-post a golden piece of "AI" history claiming it as your achievement, without giving credit.

Have my upvote for your submission.

<comment><USER2> dyukqu didn't downvote you. No one can downvote direct replies to their posts on HN.

Your comment breaks the site guidelines. Would you please review them and follow the rules when posting here, and take the intended spirit of the site to heart? We'd be grateful.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Riak at inagist.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.inagist.com/riak-at-inagistcom

<comment><USER2> Cool stuff. I'm working on a blog post talking about our use of Riak for Mozilla's Test Pilot project. Would be very interested to see examples of any of your MapReduce code if it is something you could share.

<comment><USER3> Sure I will extract some out in a follow up post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Currently doing an internship project for storing and aggregating site request logs with Riak. It was hard for me to get used to all the subtle gotchas with Map/Reduce but the people on their IRC channel are very helpful and extremely patient.</comment>


Label.css – an easy way to label DOM elements - <AUTHOR> http://usablica.github.io/label.css/

<comment><USER2> This is cool. If you add automatic support for the ARIA-label property (just duplicate your text content in the ARIA-label), this could be an accessibility tool. Otherwise you're basically hiding potentially needed info, which might normally be in ToolTips, from users with disabilities.

See [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Accessibility/ARIA/...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Accessibility/ARIA/ARIA_Techniques/Using_the_aria-label_attribute) for info and [http://freedomscientific.com/products/fs/JAWS-product- page.a...](http://freedomscientific.com/products/fs/JAWS-product-page.asp) for a demo of the most popular screen reader for blind users.

You might also want to think about tying your CSS colors to system colors, to support users who use High Contrast mode.

</comment><comment><USER3> For the curious, the way this works is ::before/::after selectors with content: attr() to bind the data attributes, which are position: absolute 'd within the parent, possibly transitioned.

Zero JS.

If you haven't played with CSS3 lately you might be surprised what it can do. I know I was a blown away when I discovered it could do data binding. Brings to mind a great I/O talk that introduced me to a lot of this stuff:

<http://www.htmlfivecan.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> While I like the simplicity of this, I would recommend to keep accessibility in mind: information put into a data attribute will not be accessible to screenreaders, and they would miss any information stored via this method.

It may make sense to append the label information to whatever is being used for the image's ALT attribute.

<comment><AUTHOR> I use data-label because i don't wanna limit labels just for images. but for the images, it's a good idea to use ALT attribute. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the difference between using the label CSS class and just setting the title attribute to get the tooltip popup?

</comment><comment><USER6> Fun fact: Even if Mr. Emrani has put a copyright notice in the README.md, it doesn't apply in the United States! I wonder if the warranty notice is also also moot?

<comment><USER7> Watch out for those localized Label.css knock-offs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This rules, it is exactly what I have been dreading having to create for a project I am currently working on.

Not sure if you are the creator (edit: you probably are, I just saw your username here matches the twitter account in the comments) but the Usablica & Github links at the top link to #

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the creator :) I'm so glad if it was useful for you.

<comment><USER9> I love this. Quick question, which browsers support this? It doesn't say on the website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> usabli.ca has been kicking ass lately. I'm actually very happy to see this is a team coming from a country like Iran.

<comment><USER11> <3

</comment></comment><comment> non-sense This is very neat and useful. Thanks for creating and sharing! Good to see new works coming from Tehran. IIRC, it was itro.js. Keep it up!

</comment><comment><USER12> Neat, but Fade didn't actually fade (in Safari).

<comment><AUTHOR> I developed it in windows. Thank you for report this bug. I'll fix it soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice, clean and simple! I love how your utilizing CSS3 and the very simple html5! Mad props!

</comment><comment><USER14> Dropping my props as well. Great work. Very clean and simple.

</comment><comment><USER15> Very neat, very slick. What more could you want?

</comment><comment><USER11> Great! Keep up the good work.

</comment><comment><USER16> Boys, I'm prude of you!

</comment><comment><USER17> Nicely done!

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice job mate :)

</comment><comment><USER19> that's great for labeling every thins that you want</comment>


Using Open Street Maps and Kalman Filters to Clean Up GPS Data - <AUTHOR> https://blog.hypertrack.io/2016/09/11/our-framework-for-real-time-filtering-of-location-streams/ <comment><USER2> Kalman filters are very useful. There are several variants that can be implemented, depending on the available data and what you want to achieve. I found a great place to get your head around them was Roger Labbe's tutorials:

[http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/rlabbe/Kalman-and- Bayesia...](http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/rlabbe/Kalman-and-Bayesian- Filters-in-Python/blob/master/table_of_contents.ipynb)

<comment><USER3> My favourite resource on Kalman is Tucker McClure's work: [http://www.anuncommonlab.com/articles/how-kalman-filters- wor...](http://www.anuncommonlab.com/articles/how-kalman-filters-work/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slightly related: I'm driving through West Africa now, and I loaded OSM onto my cheap-o used Garmin. [1]

I have been absolutely shocked and blown away by the accuracy and detail of the maps. In the tiniest dirt street village, with less than 100 people, it correctly maps all the roads and even all the walking trails.

Of course, in the big cities too.

I'm staggered they have this level of detail.

[1] [http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/](http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/)

<comment><USER3> Totally. Have you seen OSM Analytics - it has some really visualizations on how the data of geographies has evolved over time - in terms of roads, buildings etc. This link[1] shows Tanzania, for example.

[1] [http://osm- analytics.org/#/show/polygon:ivf~DvjpdAgots%40i~s...](http://osm- analytics.org/#/show/polygon:ivf~DvjpdAgots%40i~sBbfiB_ghe%40hyiK%7BdbHtczR%7DxoJlco%5Cnu_C/buildings/recency)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry to be that guy, but: OpenStreetMap. One word, not pluralised.

<comment><USER6> And I wonder if the PostgresDB they're using is PostgreSQL or something else. I googled [https://betalist.com/startups/postgresdb](https://betalist.com/startups/postgresdb) but the link to the site doesn't work.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just plain old postgres

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > OSM Filter: This uses publicly available OpenStreetMap road data and maps > our GPS traces to nearest possible roads

OSM is considered a reference for HyperTrack -- they snap to the OSM roads. But I wonder how they [OSM] might've constructed their maps given the similarly noisy GPS samples they likely would've crowdsourced from. Do they use kalman filters/more samples/higher precision GPS reference devices?

<comment><USER8> Data quality and coverage of OSM data varies widely. Their philosophy is to accept low quality data in an uncovered area and then improve it as multiple traces along the same routes come in from contributors. So my understanding is quality quickly increases as the community of contributor in the area grows.

Besides OSM data source are not limited to individual's GPS traces, they also include publicly available satellite imagery, official data released by government agencies under appropriate licenses. E.g. In the United States, OSM uses Landsat 7 satellite imagery, Prototype Global Shorelines from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They have managed to get their hands on high quality data sources in a lot of countries.

<comment><USER9> In the US there is also pretty active aerial imaging, between state and local efforts and the National Aerial Imaging Program. The pdf linked at this page seems to have a nice discussion of it:

[http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3055/](http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3055/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not sure what stack exactly they use under the hood, but we have created a sophisticated, very fast but similar algorithm implemented in Java.

Bonus: everything is open source: [https://github.com/graphhopper/map- matching](https://github.com/graphhopper/map-matching) including web API, routing engine, easy setup (no DB involved), simple demo UI, ...

Only disadvantage I see: we currently do not support online map matching but this will surely come.

BTW: kalman filters are very similar to our approach (hidden markov model).

BTW2: Their FAQ is ridiculous: "Do you have competitors? No..." There are many companies with tracking and also open source products ...

</comment><comment><USER11> This seems very useful, but isn't Google Maps doing similar stuff already? And if not, what are their concerns?

<comment><AUTHOR> The Google Maps APIs are point in time. Using OSM and Kalman filters, we can continuously snap points to the road in realtime. Plus it's a lot faster doing it on our own database than calling external APIs.</comment></comment>


UK Government in email privacy blunder - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47962405 <comment><AUTHOR> Not so long ago I received an email that included in the header _all the BCC recipients._

So just training people to use BCC isn't enough, you also need to be sure that your email system doesn't include the addresses in the header regardless.

</comment><comment><USER2> tl;dr - UK government distributed a press release by sending a regular email, and just putting 300 journalists' addresses in the To and/or CC fields.

I wonder what their normal process is. Same, but using bcc? Using mail merge (via Word+Outlook)? Using some CRM software?

I'm not sure why this matters anyway. Am I wrong to assume that it's in each journalist's interest to have their email address known, so that people can send them tips?

<comment><USER3> The article cites another example of this happening in a way more sensitive case. In the case of a distribution list to journalists it's not so bad, but their processes and training should prevent it from happening.

<comment><USER2> Right, but the other case:

\- was in a totally different part of the government (the Home Office)

\- was targeted communication related to individuals' immigration/residency status, not a press release meant for wide consumption

I don't imagine the relevant systems, processes or training would have any overlap. Unless the civil service has some generic training about GDPR and data protection, which I doubt would do much to prevent mistakes like this.

Sure, it would be nice if there were systems for everything, e.g. if everyone press release from the government or civil service were distributed via a single internal system, which would manage the approval work flow for each department as required, and send individual emails to the right journalists automatically. But I don't know who would have an incentive to fix these types of problems.

So I guess most folks just muddle along with ad hoc processes.</comment></comment></comment>