By opening a window?
This kind of exaggeration undermines any point. An invention as useful as the cell phone was a mistake because people (ab)use it while driving? Any invention is used and abused but the benefits of this invention far outweigh the drawbacks. I'm sure more lives were saved by the mobile phone, and even more were made better, than were taken.
No unga-bunga is speaking here. NixOS-loving Rust-writing software dev. Read some Ted Kaczynski folks.
It doesn’t matter what distractions you remove - ban eating and drinking (even water) while driving, impose ruinous fines for those caught… none of it will work.
You need to address the root cause, not the symptom.
The root cause is unspeakable. You will face extreme repulsion if you choose to openly discuss the root cause in this society because it would mean tough questions for our cultural identity.
Unspeakable, unimaginable, impossible to write in a sentence on HN?
To me the root cause is that 2-ton metal bricks shouldn’t be propelled at 50 kph, much less 140 kph, by tired hairless apes with tired ape reflexes, ape kids in the backseat, listening to other apes on podcasts, or talking even hands free with ape friends or ape spouses.
We were never designed for this. It’s guaranteed to be a leading cause of death and life-changing injury, so long as we keep it up.
Is that unthinkable or unspeakable? I say it on HN all the time.
They're good apes brant
On a more immediate time frame, road engineering can work really well which is why deaths are like 5x lower in places like Holland. Put bends and obstacles in the road and drivers will either have to pay attention or hit them.
Cynical answer: Humans.
Slightly less cynical: Cars.
We've built an environment (in the US, at least) where driving a car is basically a requirement to participate in society. So, people drive, whether they want to or not. And they drive whether they're physically or mentally capable of doing so successfully.
And we're so entrenched in this design that discussion of a change is met with derision and scorn.
The human nature isn’t going away, and although the environmental factors are technically under our control, they’re just getting worse.
The fact that technology only made a pre-existing issue worse does not mean that technology is not the problem.
That distraction didn’t exist 25 years ago on the scale it does today. I wish cell phone use penalties would be promoted closer to those of alcohol use while driving.