>New York, in 2001, became the first state to outlaw driver cellphone use.

I live in Manhattan and walk to work. The amount of drivers I see using their cellphones while driving on during my daily commute is ridiculous. Sometimes the drivers are in plain sight of officers whom are standing on the crossing an at intersection. It's ridiculous.

Sometimes I feel like some sort of program should be introduced where if a pedestrian can obtain evidence of a driver on the phone or something, it can be submitted and the driver receives a fine while the person that submitted the evidence gets rewarded.

My city (Sydney, Aus) has recently been rolling out cameras specifically to catch drivers using phones and other devices. These are not speed or red-light cameras -- their only purpose is to determine if a driver has both hands on the wheel and it not distracted by electronic devices.

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/09/phone-detecting-camera...

>determine if a driver has both hands on the wheel

Wait what?

Yeah. No phone; I’m glad about that.

Two hands on the wheel? That’s not necessary and also not possible in some legal scenarios (using car central console, shifting)

Australian law says you must keep both hands on the wheel at all times unless changing gears or indicating.

And regarding phones; it is illegal for a driver to be distracted by an electronic device -- even if a passenger is the person using it.

It is quite strict, but the number of preventable deaths with this sort of distraction as a contributing factor is staggeringly high.

cough How many Aussie blokes follow that law? Because a maximum of one hand on the wheel seems to be a requirement to be considered a man.

I googled "holden ute interior" and it appears modern Australian automobiles have a plethora of knobs, buttons, and cupholders, as well as infotainment displays, ventilation controls, etc.

Surely there are numerous situations where someone might take their hand(s) off the wheel other than turn signals or gear shifts. What if a drop bear gets in through the sunroof?

I think the intent is that, when not performing any actions such as changing gears or adjusting other driving-relevant controls, you should have your hands on the wheel.

How is a camera going to have visibility into determining whether the second hand is doing or not doing sanctioned actions?

The cameras are mounted above roadways on gantry's or overpasses, and they claim to be able to work in all lighting and weather conditions regardless of the vehicle's speed.

My guess is that they aim to identify non-sanctioned actions. They claim to use some sort of machine learning in addition to human verification.

I have no direct experience with them. These are simply the claims made by the authorities when they were trialed.

How about rolling down the windows? Or what about when you have to turn the wheel a lot and reposition your hands? Or turn on the air conditioning?

I am not a lawyer, but I guess those things are allowed, assuming you put your hands back on the wheel again.

I cannot recall ever hearing of anyone charged with such an offense, but I am sure you would not pass a driving test if you didn't use both hands.

https://www.canstar.com.au/car-insurance/6-road-rules-youre-...

Also what about people who’re wearing a sling or a cast with an automatic, are they not allowed to drive?

The law does not distinguish between automatic or manual transmissions.

I am not sure about the cast/sling situation. But I imagine if it was considered a contributory factor in an accident, you would be culpable.

https://www.canstar.com.au/car-insurance/6-road-rules-youre-...

How about if you only have one arm? You can’t drive? That’s fucked up.

> Yeah. No phone; I’m glad about that.

I was not talking about phones. There's plethora of buttons, knobs, switches and levers in car that are non-phone related.

When I'm a passenger in a cab, I would settle for one hand on the wheel. Preferably firmly and not just resting.

When I read discussions like this, I generally have no idea what people are talking about.

For instance, people constantly talk about "texting while driving". Maybe it's because of my age, but if this actually means typing on a phone's on screen keyboard, I just can't understand how someone could actually be good enough at this to not crash immediately.

But conversely, I don't understand how anyone can not "use their cellphone while driving". Isn't cell phone navigation the standard way of getting around these days? Who uses built-in car navigation or paper maps?

And finally, if anyone cared about distractions, then why does my streaming music app stop every 20 minutes while I'm driving (I generally ignore it, or else I pull over to reset it, but if I could fix it while driving it would be very tempting)

What's the penalty? It ought to be equivalent to a DUI, given the impairment is similar if not worse from phone distraction at the wheel.

Driving drunk is safer than texting. With DUI, at least your reaction time is just scaled by a certain amount. Whereas when inputting something with a touchscreen, your road attention completely disappears for imperceptible spurts of time.

My dad gave me some great advice when I started driving: “Drive like every car and pedestrian around you is about to make the worst possible decision.”

I simply can’t understand how people think it’s OK to take their eyes off the road while conducting a multi-ton chunk of steel and glass at highway speeds.

I’ve taken stick over the years for refusing to even touch my climate controls or radio while driving. But, I’ve had two close calls in recent memory where, had I been looking away for just a second, something catastrophic would have happened. And it would have been my fault.

The advice i gave to my kids when walking to school... don't assume a vehicle is going to stop for you at a crossing.

They do it because they’re “not distracted at all”. Seriously. That’s what I’ve heard from people.

The really interesting thing here is that it had to be shown that there was texting occurring. It seems that slamming into the back of another vehicle and killing someone would be A OK otherwise. Driving is a responsibility free zone in our culture...

Good. As someone who bikes to work and sees the disgusting displays of drivers on a daily basis I hope for more of this.

More dead pedestrians?