American drivers even more distracted by phones. Pedestrian deaths are soaring

Re:American drivers even more distracted by phones. Pedestri... by bluefirebrand on Friday February 23, 2024 @08:08AM (#39480094)

> 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

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Re:American drivers even more distracted by phones. Pedestri... by JKCalhoun on Friday February 23, 2024 @08:32AM (#39480338)

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

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Re:American drivers even more distracted by phones. Pedestri... by Amezarak on Friday February 23, 2024 @08:36AM (#39480387)

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.

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Re:American drivers even more distracted by phones. Pedestri... by bluefirebrand on Friday February 23, 2024 @09:09AM (#39480741)

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.

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