I am sure you are right, but how many lives are worth that inconvenience? I really don’t think that this behavior will change voluntarily. Especially since it is an addiction for many.
I would think, to make this work, there would need to be a convergence of effort with both the auto and phone industries. It would have to work at the phone level itself, not something that blocks sms to the phone.
I agree with @sil here we don’t want to prevent all texting in cars only by the person driving the car.
This is probably best solved by education otherwise where do you stop? Do you add a breathalyser to check the driver is sober too? I have got into the habit of passing my phone to my daughter if she is with me or switching the phone off before I start driving. That way if somebody calls me it will go straight to voice mail and I read any texts I’ve been sent when I turn the phone back on at the end of the journey.
Occasionally I forget but if I receive a text or get a phone call while I’m driving I ignore it. I can always phone them back when it is safe.
I hadn’t heard of anybody trying to stop phones from recording video in this way but I was involved with a scheme in Thailand where we created a dummy base station so your phone thought it was connected to your home network but it wasn’t so you could not get a call or receive a text.
We sold a few to movie theatres.
Many places in the USA require all passengers to wear a seat belt, whereas at first it was just the driver. Also, the legal blood/alcohol levels keep dropping but, so far, it hasn’t got to the universal breathalyser yet, and there is no indication that it will. The point is, usually reasonable actions are taken for safety. But, we are talking government here. 
And, I ask, how did we ever manage without texting?
Another idea I had was to use enough transmitters in a vehicle so a triangulation could be done so that the phone in the drivers seat will have the sms disabled. But that could be gotten around by leaving the phone in the passenger seat and texting from there, which means it would be even more dangerous.
Or, if only the front of the cabin could be affected, then, if a passenger wants to text, go to the rear, if possible.
How about a sentence that would active discouage the behaviour? You caught texting, policeman pulls you over and CRACK!! baton connects with head.
That’ll learn 'em
Okay, maybe that is a little extreme, but a seriously heavy financial penalty (that is enforced) would probably do it. I’d say texting is significantly more dangerous than doing 40mph in a 30 and it should be treated as such.
A severe penalty should be part of the education campaign.
When they started the seatbelt campaign in the UK they were just saying if you don’t wear a seatbelt if you have an accident your injuries will be more severe but the message soon became and if we catch you not wearing your seatbelt you will get a hefty fine too.
We can do the same over texting it’s already illegal in the UK so we should have a campaign that reconstructs an accident caused by the driver texting and ending by saying and if we catch you texting while driving you will lose your licence.
It has been shown that texting while driving is worse than being legally drunk. In the USA, it does not take much to lose your license for drunk driving. Drunk driving didn’t start going down till these measures were taken. So, why should one caught texting while driving retain that privilege besides having to pay out a huge fine?
I’m not surprised. I’m a keen cyclist, and I would certainly say that the majority of times people come closer than I am comfortable with they have a phone either in their hand or at their ear. Also, hands-free is not a panacea. Several times I have heard someone talking on the phone as I scream through their window to give me space.
I assume you mean keen here and not clean.
But I’m all for a heavy penalty here. And losing ones licence for a minimum of two years before having to take your test again would not be unreasonable for anybody caught texting.
I’m sure he meant that he showers before cycling.
The phone has an off button, just use it. If you can’t turn off your phone (maybe because you are on the short list for an organ transplant), set in “shut the fuck up and leave me alone” mode, and just check the phone when you are stationary at a red light or something.
Couldn’t agree more. Texting while driving is dangerous.
See DWI: Driving while intexticated for some statistics from the US.
The trouble is, the general attitude is: ‘that doesn’t apply to me’ or, ‘I’ll just get this one message’. One would think that this is such a no-brainer, that there would be no issues. But, we are dealing with compulsions.
The stereotype is of a young person doing this, but most of the ones I know doing this are not that young! Thanks for the link.
I was disappointed that this tech (radar gun) might be bogus. But I can also see how, if it is real, it could lead to abuse, or at least inconvenience. How many would be pulled over for a passenger texting?
There are lots of videos on YouTube to show why you shouldn’t text and drive Most are are not pleasant to watch.
But, to illustrate the point a group of Belgian learner drivers were told the law was changing and they had to demonstrate they could text while driving. This video shows the results on a closed course.
I suppose the stereotype is a young person because teenagers tend to spend more time on the phone but there are plenty of adults guilty of this too.
Huh. That video is excellent.
Actually it has been shown that talking on a mobile is worse than being legally drunk. Texting is even worse.
Just to add my 2 cents, I think this texting radar gun is completely infeasable.
SMS rides along with the same control protocol your phone is using constantly to send messages back and forth with the carrier. Sending a text is completely ‘bursty’ so you could be driving down the road for miles writing a text on your phone being completely reckless but its not until the moment you hit the send button that any kind of SMS radio action takes place. The police would have to be in the right place at the right time and IMO the chances of seeing someone driving down the road looking down at their lap constantly is a much more effective indicator that they are texting.
I agree that scaremongering is at play here.
I think the problem some people have, is that their brine simply get bored. I think that most peoples problem could be solved, by downloading an awesome audio book and listening to that wile driving. Maybe they could simply turn on the radio and listen to bbc1 or something.
People just do not like being alone whit one self: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2014/07/03/idle/J2LpEcTdZzLykRCTnZ80fL/story.html
Hyundai filed a patent to disable a smartphone in proximity to the steering wheel. I thought this might be an interesting solution to texting and driving. Assuming it would work. http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/15/hyundai-patent-smartphone-disabler/