Minnesota is not a hands-free state. A bill was introduced earlier this year but was dropped because the lawmakers didn’t want to “burn through political capital” for it. However, when I’m driving along or even just walking my dog, there is a large amount of drivers either looking at their crotch or have it on the steering wheel shining that blue-white light in their face.
That said, I live on the corner of an intersection with a four-way stop. When the weather is fine, we sit on the porch with the dogs and play a game where we guess if the driver will stop/ rolling stop/ completely blow through the intersection. I did an informal survey one night and the majority of people came to a stop, about 20% did a rolling stop, and about 7 percent blew through it. But 100% came to a complete stop when a police vehicle was present.
So is that what it’s like in a hands-free area? Still a bunch of people using their phones when an officer isn’t present?
DC became a hands-free state several years ago, and while I still see idiots holding their phones and doing dumb things, I think there has been a slight but noticeable improvement.
I’ve known a fair number of people who over the last several years who have been pulled over and either ticketed or warned about not being hands-free.
To me, the real question isn’t if people are using their phones when an officer isn’t present, it’s are the number of accidents caused by distracted driving lower?
Years ago, not only would a large number of people drive after a night a drinking without giving it a second thought, but drinking while driving was also not uncommon. Many of those who would do this sincerely believed that, while in general it was true that drinking alcohol impairs driving ability, they were more careful and knew their limits better than others, so that generality did not apply to them. It took decades of education, research, and societal changes to get where we are now with respect to DUI, and accomplishing the goal with Distracted Driving is going to be a harder battle; we are likely to develop self-driving cars to the point that it makes the matter moot long before that happens.
The “hands-free” devices are, IMO, a distraction (pun intended) to changing societies attitudes towards distracted driving. The operator of a motor vehicle should always have controlling the vehicle the #1 (and only) priority. By allowing, by law, certain classes of devices to be used to distract the driver from the primary function is not a move in the right direction.
Odd to think the Godless Liberals in the Peoples Republic of Minnesota have fewer personal restrictions on their liberties than those of us here in the Republic of Texas, populated as we are by Proud, Patriotic, Freedom-Loving Conservatives.
Essentially, everyone whips out their phones at stop lights.
I was reading an article a while back where police were talking about “stoplight prayers” – that is, everyone at the light has their head bowed towards their lap and sometimes and beatific glow upon their faces.
Illinois is hands-free although I see people outright holding a phone to their ear on a regular basis. I’m sure many more are texting or reading stuff while they drive, even if the phone is kept out of sight. Some legitimate car stuff is cumbersome to do hands-free like set up a GPS destination although that probably makes up a tiny sliver of hands-on phone use compared to angry Tweeting and checking Facebook.
I have, for much of my life, been very adroit at doing multiple things at once. When I was at the controls of a NASA wind tunnel, back in the 1970-80s, we did everything manually, no automation at all. I would be dialing one knob to increase thrust while simultaneously watching pressure ratios and tweaking another knob to maintain a steady ratio increase so that both parameters came to the new settings at the same time. All the while looking at vibrations, temperatures etc to make sure they are OK. I took great pride in being able to do things like that.
I was a race/rally car driver for many years. While driving you need to concentrate on the road, but always watching other things. Flick your eyes to the mirror, check the gauges, drop your hand to the shifter to see if you are in 3rd or 4th, quick on and off on the wipers, check the side mirrors. You are very busy. I found this came to me naturally.
I still drive like that. I hate things being “on” that are not needed, like wipers. So as I drive, I flick the lever once for a single front wipe, then twist the rear wiper knob for one swipe. I don’t look down, I know where they are. It never bothers my concentration.
But I cannot hold a conversation and do something else. Conversing just uses a part of my brain that requires total concentration, the other tasks drift away. Can’t do it while driving. Can’t do it while playing trivia on a tablet and someone asks me a question. Even if I don’t answer them, just the fact that I was distracted enough to hear them speaking pulls my attention away from the game, and my response goes to hell. If I concentrate on the game in critical moments, I don’t even hear the other person speaking. My ears are shut off.
