I rarely try to type something in my phone while driving, but I rely on my phone for music and podcasts so I use my iPhone way more than I probably should while driving, trying to skip to the next song or move to a different podcast. I can’t feel where to tap, obviously, so I have to glance and focus for a second to do this. I don’t like it and I miss the days of a feel-based UI like every auto had before 2010. I’d much prefer a voice activated assistant as good as Alexa for my car (and I’ve signed up for whatever device Amazon is planning on releasing), but that doesn’t exist right now and Siri is just pathetic.
I’m prepared for the straight dope blasting on this, but I think anyone that uses their phone for car audio can relate.
Err… I mean, how many of you fool around way too much. Skipped a word there in the title.
The only time my phone is out is for GPS. My car is too old to plug the phone into.
A bit over 20 years ago I was driving north on 101 past Santa Barbara, and I did a pre-interview for a possible job. When I hung up I realized I had gone 30 miles on a crowded road with no recollection of driving. I never used the phone while driving again. This was still legal back then.
When I have the phone connected to the car’s sound-system by Bluetooth, I can do that with the sound-system’s own buttons. While mine aren’t on the driver’s wheel, it’s still a lot easier than fiddling with the phone.
I only take supermegaimportant calls, and only to say “I’m driving, call you back as soon as I can stop, bye.” hang up
I don’t use my phone at all when driving. I have bluetoothed it to my stereo and can answer calls from there. I play audiobooks on it - but I start those before I set off and never fiddle about when driving, even in stopped traffic.
I’m pretty hard-nosed about this kind of thing. Driving a huge hulk of metal is a responsibility. I take it as such.
Mostly for driving directions. I start the navigation then turn the screen off and put the phone down (btw does the google maps voice with the Indian accent actually say slipfoot for freeway on ramp? Or am I just mishearing it?)
I do occasionally take a phone call while driving home from work, from the dorkling usually. Put it on speaker and set the phone down since most of my route home goes through a town where the police actively look for that.
My voice mail message says that for me. (Also says I do not answer the phone while sleeping or flying, along with not while driving.)
Also, it’s impossible to hook a phone/iWhatever/bluetooth/anything into either of my vehicles, being that old and minimal technology.
WTF do people feel a need to screw with their phones while driving? We somehow managed to exist before we had smart phones. If you MUST deal with the phone pull off the road and deal with it. Otherwise, hang up and drive. And yes, I do in fact pull off the road to do that instead of risking my neck and others.
I’ve never met someone who used that and who wasn’t from the US or Canada, I don’t even know how to set mine up but it would only be possible when I happen to be home in Spain. The voice mail’s number does not work from abroad (as usual), for some reason phone providers don’t ever seem to connect “customer is using roaming” with “customer may need to be able to call the kind of numbers that work from abroad, when customer is abroad and trying to call our services”.
My phone lives in my pocket. It’s connected via Blutooth, but on the rare occasions I get a call, I can tell right off it’s a crap call, and one button on the steering wheel will disconnect it. If I feel the buzz of a text, I’ll get it out at the next stop light or I’ll pull over.
Nothing in my life is urgent enough for me to mess with the phone while driving.
I use mine for podcasts and GPS when driving, but in my vehicle I have a pretty good hands-free setup and rarely have to actually touch the phone screen. I can do pretty much everything I need via voice command. I do glance occasionally at the GPS, but only long enough to see how far to the next turn and which lane I should be in.
I’m among those who have the phone connected via Bluetooth so I can control music playback, pause podcasts or answer calls with the steering wheel controls or tapping the in-dash entertainment display. I am guilty of sometimes looking at the phone during a red light but don’t drive around while reading websites.
It is blue tooth enabled. So I will sometimes play music from my phone. I can skip songs or whatever with a button on my steering wheel. If I get a text, it will read it to me, but while I’m driving, I don’t touch the phone at all. If I wanted to make a call, I could do that through voice commands, but never have.
Wondering if ANYONE will admit to checking texts while stopped at a light (not to mention while driving), driving while using handheld… Because there sure are PLENTY of folk around these parts who do both.
I’m a minimal cellphone user anyway - I never take mine out of my pocket while driving. Maybe 3x in the 2+ years I’ve had this car I’ve received incoming phone calls that I answered via bluetooth.
I sometimes check texts at a red light but I wouldn’t say I use the phone regularly while driving (I do sometimes skip tracks / select podcasts when I can’t get Siri to do it for me, though!)
My friend checks her phone at EVERY stop light and sometimes just when stopped in traffic and it drives me crazy. It’s clearly just force of habit for her but I’m dreading the day when it causes a bigger problem.
My car doesn’t have bluetooth, so I have to use Aux cable.
I am not a no-phone-ever nazi.
I will fidget with GPS and podcast selection IF I am at a light OR no one else is around me. I sometimes use talk-to-text at stoplights so I can keep an eye on the light. I usually don’t because it will just screw up what I am trying to say.
What gets me is how some people prioritize fidgeting with the phone, no matter what else is going on. I have to feel like I am in a nice comfortable straight away with no other cars around before I will pick it up.