kickstart

Much of what's worthwhile in life requires us to step outside our little comfort zones with the need to be "on guard", and for many of us our needs require the same.

genec

I am not talking about achieving new "highs" in life... certainly those chamber of commerce ads are not geared toward that goal either... otherwise you'd see cyclists in racing jerseys and microscopes and the like in their ads.

Go back and study the term bon vivant.

genec

Where in Europe? There are many different counties over there.

kickstart

Germany and France. And yes, I comprehend the "joy of living".

Chris516

Where?

I was born in (Berlin)Germany, and lived in Germany until I was 3yrs.-old. I went back in 1991 when I was 24. For part of a three week trip through western and eastern Europe. It was during the trip that I realized, Americans' have not 'cornered the market', on bad driving. I have been to France several times. They are really bad drivers.

kickstart

Schweinfurt, Marseille.

For all the fawning over how Europeans are better drivers, which generally seems true, I also found them to be far more aggressive and way less considerate.

enigmaT120

Are they any less likely to kill pedestrians and cyclists? And each other, for that matter? I certainly had the impression (partly from this forum) that they are. I haven't compared the fatality rates.

genec

One of the joys of living is not having to be "on guard."

Mvcrash

Distracted driving did not start with the introduction of the cell phone. It started many, many years ago with radios,tape players,heat/air conditioning systems and.....conversation amongst many other things. I once wrote a guy a summons for reckless driving because he was on Route 80 West, Center lane, traveling at about 75 mph with the Wall Street Journal draped over the steering wheel. his driving was so bad when I first observed him I thought he was DWI. He was actually yelled at by the the Superior Court Judge (because of where I worked, it was not heard in municipal court) found guilty and lost his drivers license for 90 days.
This type of behavior will take a concerted effort to curb. Folks drink, eat, smoke, have ear buds in their head, blast the radio and do a plethora of other things that distract their driving.

genec

While somewhat true... it is only the reading things that actually "demand" that one take eyes off the road. Cars had always been designed so that one could find and actuate various controls in the car by feel... the 5 button radio, the heat controls, the light controls and much more were all knobs, levers or switches that could be found and controlled without actually looking at them.

Even soda drinking and eating certain foods can be done without taking one's eyes off the road. (all hail the french fry and "chicken nugget")

Since the advent of the cell phone, and other similar small screens, such as GPS, and entertainment systems... the demand for a drivers' attention has increased dramatically. Touch screens are especially bad as one cannot make a selection on said screens unless you look at them. These are all fairly recent "innovations" in automobiles.

So while there have been other distractions in cars since cars first hit the road (girl friends, food, kids, eventually radios...) none of these has demanded the driver's attention as much as small screen devices. (OK, newspapers... but jeeze... that guy needed his keys taken away).

kickstart

Statistically lower, but that's deceptive as risk is best measured individually by circumstance rather than statistics. I also noticed that the cycling culture in Europe is far less focused on sport and thrill seeking.

KD5NRH

This; if you look at aircraft MFDs and other similar devices designed to be used while controlling a vehicle, pretty much all of them have rows of reasonably large physical buttons that can be navigated by touch, at least for basic functions. They're often totally configurable, but it's not that hard for a pilot to pretty much unconsciously learn a sequence like "left second button brings up the menu I need, right third button for the sub-menu, right second button for the function." Even Android devices tend to use more physical buttons (power, volume up/down and camera, at least, often with the ability to reconfigure the camera on a rooted one) and screen buttons with constant locations (home, back, app switch) than Apple, which makes it a lot easier to use the device without looking, or with only a quick glance at the screen orientation.
The only points I can give Apple would be for Siri, but even that only works if the environment is quiet enough, and she's locked out of doing a lot of things that would be really handy.

genec

Exactly... since cars were first available, one has been able to simply reach for various controls and change settings as needed, with nary a glance.

Touch screens and text screens make this impossible... they are simply icons on a smooth face...

That some auto manufactures are now using video screens inside the vehicle for things like entertainment and environmental control (radio and A/C), is just asking for trouble... even if a knob is available to make the selection, one has to actually look at the screen to see what the selection is... and that requires eyes off the road. However brief... it could easily mean the difference in the life of someone.... a child running into the street for instance... or a cyclist changing a lane.

Touch screens inside a car are a terrible concept.

JoeyBike

Yeah, like talking about herself. Try asking her bra size and see where that gets you. Worthless feature IMO.

Coal Buster

Depends on the car. I can access all the relevant features of my radio and iPhone through buttons on my steering wheel. Not texting though. I don't text while driving but I see plenty of other drivers doing it every morning during my commute. You can usually spot them stopped in traffic looking down while traffic has moved on ahead of them.

Mvcrash

Distraction is distraction. Push a radio button, turn a dial, use a hand to eat...all distractions. Driving a MV is a multitask undertaking without any type of distraction. The fact remains, folks have been killed after spilling a drink, dropping a cigarette....etc.... The new high tech stuff just adds to the list of distractions. They are no better or worse, just more folks doing it.

I was told in drivers Ed, start the car, adjust the seat and mirrors, tune the radio station, buckle up and then drive. No one ever told me it was ook to eat or drink, smoke or flirt, change radio stations, have sex (yes I've seen that too) or do anything else but DRIVE THE CAR. Just my 2 cents.

genec

While I agree that drivers should do nothing but drive... the reality is that just won't happen. As far as distractions... well I'm gonna stick to the concept that touch screens are especially bad... due to the way they demand that drivers take their eyes off the road. Using a touch screen, to me, is much much more distracting than simply twisting a radio dial or grabbing a french fry.

genec

Exactly... their eyes and attention are not on the task at hand.

Lars Halstrom

Game poachers, get their guns taken away permanently, drug dealers can get their cars taken away permanently. Why should cell phone users while driving get their cell phones back?

Lars Halstrom

I agree with you. Especially those GPS devices that people use while driving that the car rental store puts in a lot of their vehicles these days.

I-Like-To-Bike

For the same reason that bicycle users do not get their bicycles permanently confiscated for traffic violations, even though there may be a group of irrational/extremist motorists who think that that "solution" to the "bicyclist problem" is a wonderful idea.

Lars Halstrom

I think the penalties for violations are inconsistent. Poachers and drug dealers probably don't have the same hardship that confiscation of a cell phone could have. Confiscating property for traffic violations would cost the taxpayers an enormous amount of money for towing and storage alone.

Coal Buster

Oh, come on. Can't push a button while driving? If I had to pull over every time I wanted to change my radio, It'd be time to go back home when I finally got to work. Humans are really good at multi-tasking. They're not good at knowing what's down the road when they're looking somewhere at else.

JoeyBike

They should have taken my bikes away from me a long time ago.