Enough of the population simply doesn't have the self control to resist the dopamine IV drip that comes from phone use.

I sympathize with your sentiments, but the social problem was created by tech solutions in the first place.

> How about we try and figure out how to train people to be better drivers, and more responsible adults in general,

You can't. You may improve things at the margins but it will do nothing to the overall trend. Smartphone use is addictive. Consider that decades of cradle-to-grave anti-smoking education with huge amounts of funding combined with immediate financial disincentives (high taxes) succeeded only in lowering the smoking rate to 12%. People are not ideal rational actors.

And smartphones are an even more intractable problem, because we're suggesting educating people out of smartphone addiction, but only out of not using it while they drive. It is simply not possible to educate a sizable proportion of the population out of this. Even strict police enforcement will not make a big difference.

That’s an excellent set of points. For analogy, people used to smoke on their cars (another very addictive thing), but smoking was not nearly as distracting as smartphone use.

Likewise, listening to the radio is habit forming (some people don’t seem to be able to sit in quiet in their car). But it’s also not nearly as distracting - just turn the radio on and maybe try to change the station.

Ultimately the tech industry needs to first be held responsible and liable for the problems it creates.

> social problem was created by tech solutions in the first place.

No it wasn't, people have driven with distractions since cars were invented. Eating in the car, arguing with passengers, wrangling children, looking at paper maps, doing their makeup. etc.

The problem is people

And yet, right in the title, pedestrian deaths are soaring.

Yes, distractions have always existed.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that smartphone addiction increased the scale and severity of the problem by orders of magnitude.

No, it's not controversial at all, we're in complete agreement.

Tech has taken a lot of social problems and poured gas on them, it's not just this one.

In some of those cases it may make sense to place limits on the tech to try and curb that.

And yeah, if there is a tech way to solve this without negatively impacting passengers or commuters, it might be worth exploring.

But my point still stands. This is a social problem, it was not created by smartphones and it therefore cannot be fixed by changing smartphones. At best you can try and mitigate it.

And an effort to mitigate it will never fly if it has to affect every other person that may not even ever drive themselves.