I lived in NSW (the state in the article) for a while, and had my car rammed into from behind 3 times in 2 years while I was stopped at a red light, all 3 times the drivers admitted they were checking their phone and hadn't noticed the light go red or me stop. They're not even shy about it, and the casualness at which people use their phones in cars is shocking.

I got front and rear dash cams after the 1st hit, to protect myself for insurance claims etc, and caught the following 2 + uncountable near-misses almost all of which were people using their phones, doing make-up, or at one point eating a bowl of cereal while driving.

People don't take it seriously at all, and having had a close family member killed by someone blowing a red light while playing on their phone, and my best mate killed by a truck driver mounting the footpath because he was checking his job computer, I'm 100% for stricter punishment against people who don't take driving seriously.

Mobile phones, drink driving, all of them can and do lead to people dying and should be treated as such.

Australian, but my immediate family and mother in law were in a taxi on a highway in China a few weeks ago and were rammed by a truck from behind. The driver was on her phone. Two broken ribs, neck injury, cuts and bruises, missed flight, missed work. To date, zero insurance payout.

People using their phones while waiting for the light is absolutely a safety issue.

They aren’t paying attention and when the light turns green they may either hit a pedestrian as they hurry to move , or not notice the green and be rear ended by a driver who expects them to begin moving.

To second your point- I'd hazard that people using phones at lights are also using them in between lights. I filter at lights despite it being illegal where I live- because I've already been rear ended twice by people on phones. And by filtering I get a great view on people using their phones. They are nine times out of ten using their phones leading up to the light, during the light and during takeoff. I've also noticed that when they notice movement in their peripheral, they start driving forward even when the light is red. I filter much slower now so as to keep people from blindly thinking the light is green and shooting out into traffic or into a pedestrian.

In the last year I've begun pausing slightly before pulling into an intersection when the light just turned green. I don't care to be t-boned by someone failing to get through before it turned red.

I've also started glancing left & right going through the green even if it's been green a while.

Once the traffic in front of me stopped suddenly, I stopped, and the truck behind me didn't and totaled my car, nearly killing me. Since then I glance in the rearview mirror when I have to stop hard, which paid off one day when I figured the guy behind me wasn't going to stop in time, I pulled off onto the shoulder, and he hit the car in front of me.

Isn't this just how everyone should be driving all the time?

This is what I was taught when I learned to drive 20 years ago, and texting wasn't really a thing back then.

> Isn't this just how everyone should be driving all the time?

Perhaps, but I too frequently encounter the notion that having the legal right of way means one doesn't have to look. I've especially encountered this with bicyclists. Sometimes they'll tell me that it's ok because if someone hits them, they'll get a huge lawsuit judgement. I counter with what good is that if you're dead or crippled?

Some people I just don't understand.

> "I've also noticed that when they notice movement in their peripheral, they start driving forward even when the light is red."

This has been the case for years. When people aren't paying attention they are pavlovian in staring forward when they notice movement around them. But this doesn't necessarily have to coincide with cell phone usage, just bad driving.

So we shouldn't punish bad driving?

Because ~95% of the populace is bad for some definition of bad. We should really only be punishing exceptional badness.

95% of the population probably shouldn't be driving. It should be a job held to exceptional standards like a pilot.

How can someone say this with a straight face? Driving is for better or worse the primary means of covering long distance in a timely and economical manner for a large slice of the global population.

That's a pretty big problem. Governments need to put in a big effort to remove the car dependence they created rather than let careless people go on killing because it's a convenient way for them to get to work and read the news at the same time.

What do you mean by "filter"?

I believe they mean riding a motorcycle in the gap between two lanes of traffic, thus "filtering" through the static traffic to the front.

It's worth noting that this is legal in some places. Not everyone on HN may be aware of that. I know I was surprised when I first saw it.

It's legal in NSW Australia so long as traffic is not moving.

It's legal in traffic moving up to 30 km/h (including the rider) actually.

https://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/stayingsafe/motorcyc...

The long name is "lane filtering".

I've seen an increase of motorcycle cops lane filtering at traffic lights, looking into the laps of the drivers. If there's a phone there, they're booked.

> They aren’t paying attention and when the light turns green they may either hit a pedestrian as they hurry to move...

This sounds like a different issue that can arise without phones being involved. Just because you look at your phone does not mean you need to be sheepish when you look back up. The problem is people are more worried about getting going than being safe.

> ...or not notice the green and be rear ended by a driver who expects them to begin moving.

If someone rear ends you when the light turns green that is 100% their fault. You can't start moving if the car in front of you is stopped. This has been the case long before the existence of phones.

Assigning fault has nothing to do with safety.

Isn't this entire thread about assigning blame to cell phones causing safety issues? Instead of looking objectively at all the various issues that cause safety issues while driving: distraction, day-dreaming, sleep loss (comparable to driving while drunk), etc etc

In this case, the fault assignment correctly identifies as unsafe that driver who started moving and rammed a stopped vehicle immediately in front.

The stopped vehicle at a green light also increased the probability of collision.

Most collisions require two unsafe drivers. One to swerve out of their lane, another who thoughtlessly drive down the highway alongside another car; that sort of thing.

There is no excuse for hitting something unmoving, right in front of your vehicle, which has been there the whole time.

Vehicles can remain standing on a green for reasons like the engine having stalled, or there still being a pedestrian in front of them.

It is not comparable to doing something poorly considered for which there cannot be a good reason, like driving in someone's blindspot on the freeway for hundreds of meters, in low traffic.

No, sorry if you drive into the back of another car that’s your fault for being too close and not being prepared to stop.

If someone drives into a stationary car just because the lights go green they are an incompetent driver because they haven’t checked the road is clear before moving off.

The car in front could have stalled, the driver could have had a heart attack, a child could have run into the road 3 cars down and you can’t see them.

Anything could have happened and if you’re not prepared for that at all times YOU are not in control of your vehicle and hence a bad driver.

Too many drivers have cognitive dissonance of the form “I already know I’m an excellent driver, so it couldn’t possibly be my fault...” for every situation this why we need presumed liability.

A very simple and necessary general principle is that if two or more vehicles are involved in a collision, if it can be shown that some of them violated the traffic code (committed a ticketable moving offense) and some did not, then the liability should be apportioned among just those drivers which violated the traffic code.

> or not notice the green and be rear ended by a driver who expects them to begin moving.

What? If you ever hit someone like that, I'd say you're ten times more dangerous than anyone texting.

The driver behind them might be texting too! They see in their peripheral vision that the car next to them is moving and hit the gas without properly looking around.

Well, that's more dangerous than texting while stopped.

>or not notice the green and be rear ended by a driver who expects them to begin moving.

That wouldn't be the front driver's fault at all. What if there's someone crossing the road in front of that person and they can't drive off. The person behind them shouldn't be so focused only on the color of the traffic light that they start moving the moment it turns green.

That'd be even more unsafe.

Sure, but it perverts incentives when a crime is punished only when it is a certain level of severity but not when it's more severe than that. For the people who are looking at their phones at red lights today, what percentage of them will stop because of this, and what percentage will say, "Oh there's a camera here, I'll wait until I'm on the highway to check my texts."

Not only that, but even for those checking while driving, how many people now put the phone down below the dash, where they really can't see traffic when looking at it, vs. holding it up in the air where they can glance back an forth (not that this is really safe either, but looking down at your lap is much worse).

Do you have any data to back up this assertion?

Just not moving at a turn lane because they are texting is big deal. Turn lights are timed precisely to let X number of cars go through. Dick butt takes up most of the time texting and now traffic is stuck backing up from the turn lane into the normal straight traffic lane and onwards.

These photos were taken on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, there's no traffic lights on there and there's rarely any stop and go traffic.

i perused the article and saw nowhere that it said that this would only be used at red lights, which i'd oppose, since that's relatively safer (to look at a phone) than while actually driving (perfect shouldn't be the enemy of better).

apparently some cameras are fixed and some are mobile, but presumably they're checking cars that are both moving and stationary (if it so happens to be in view of the camera when/where it stops).

distracted driving is a real problem, and phones are a large part of that problem. genuine efforts at curbing distracted driving are welcome, as long as we don't have to trade away all our privacy in the process. i'm generally against camera surveillance for that reason.

in any case, continuing improvements in voice control will go a long way toward reducing distracted driving via mobile devices.

You are correct, it is designed to catch moving traffic, but it would also catch someone going underneath in a stationary traffic jam.

Actually studies have shown that people on (hands free) phone calls are also very distracted from the task of driving, driving slower than the traffic, around corners etc. [Haque et el at QUT. A small study in a simulator, but it certainly matches anecdotal observation... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014... ]

Just tuning the radio or even listening to the radio can increase response times. Unsurprisingly, having children in the car can also significantly increase risk. [MUARC] Remember that next time you see a Baby On Board sign.

>in any case, continuing improvements in voice control will go a long way toward reducing distracted driving via mobile devices.

It'd have to be a lot of continuing improvements because at the moment, voice control is an absolute shitshow and IMO way more distracting than pushing predictable buttons.

I cross a particularly busy intersection here in Melbourne as a pedestrian every day.

At least once a week I see people who are too busy playing with their phones to realise all the cars in front of them had already driven off, the traffic light was now red again, and pedestrians were about to start crossing. The sudden realisation then makes them slam the accelerator without checking their surroundings first.

At the same intersection I witnessed an accident where the first driver in line was playing with their phone, got spooked by someone honking, and ran the red light straight into traffic.

It's like they're tricking themselves into thinking they're paying enough attention.

It's never about safety. These cameras bring in billions in revenue.

If you want to argue that they're not about revenue raising tell me why the Police here strike for pay rises by warning motorists of where the cameras are?

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/police-threaten-...

They've done this for at least 3 pay rises in the past and they actually have followed through.

How would you propose authorities stop people from using their phones while driving without:

1. Detecting when people are using their phone while driving?

2. Imposing a penalty when people are caught?

Applying a high fine for infringements is a good deterrent. It's definitely about safety as much (if not more) than revenue raising.

If people don't want to give revenue to the government, it's simple - don't use your phone while driving.

For these cameras (and speeding cameras, too) to be effective at all, you either:

A) need a huge volume of them so people assume they will certainly get caught if they use their phone even just once

B) place them at critical spots and make them very clearly visible e.g. via adding signs

Otherwise, they're just hidden and rare enough that nobody actually changes their driving style. Now neither A nor B are the case. So what's their use besides making money?

Also, why take money only? Off the top of my head, why not something like each time you get caught, you get a "buffered" 1-day driving restriction and once it adds up to some amount it's applied? Currently you can just speed all the time as long as you're not grossly over the limit. All you need to do is pay a little money which might be trivial for some people. A driving restriction might not be.

These cameras obviously aren't implemented with safety as a priority. It's about money first and foremost. Safety is just a pretense. Same thing for govt surveillance and so on. It's surprising to me that the same excuse can be used over and over effectively.

How about more highway patrol? You know, physical officers who can be anywhere instead of a camera on a pole thats well known.

Speed cameras just cause people to behave in a single spot. Worse they usually backlog traffic because drivers brake when approaching them "just in case"

Agreed. You have to draw the line somewhere and I can't believe people are actually arguing against this like they have a leg to stand on.

The example pictures they showed on the news reports had cars doing at least 80kmh. It was in the info at the top of the pictures.

i also wonder what the real motive is. just expanding surveillance tech? ceo of this company pals with govt officials?

> Doesn't really sound like this is actually about safety.

Wow, what an ignorant statement. I get a lot of people like to drive without following the rules and think there should be no consequences. Even though driving a car is usually the most dangerous thing you will do today.