It’s not legal. It just likely hasn’t been explicitly made illegal. I’m sure every state has a law to operate motor vehicles with “due care” or some similar clause. Inattentive driving is not exercising due care.
I don’t think the law matters here…it’s enforcement. I cycle every day downtown in a major city, and I see so much craziness with phones, including watching videos, texting, and playing Pokemon Go while driving. My city has banned all use of cell phones while driving if not using a hands-free devices. It’s just that nobody is ever pulled over, nobody’s ever even warned, and it seems that nobody cares. The cops too are too busy on their phones.
By that logic, murder is “perfectly legal”, as the title of the article suggests, so long as it isn’t enforced. This is obviously a preposterous notion. If enforcement is the issue, the solution should focus on that. An article suggesting it’s legal, absolves police of their duty to enforce laws and puts it in the hands of legislatures. But it’s already illegal so law makers could do no more on the matter. Further, as the issue is enforcement, even if they passed more laws, it would beg the question how they will be enforced.
I don’t watch videos as i drive, i listen to them. I wanna hear what ChubbyEmu has to say about “emia, presence in blood”.
Unless a commercial comes on, then I’m focusing all of my attention on the screen until that skip button pops up. I’ve only hit two cyclist this year, so clearly nothing needs to change
Sounds like less ads in your videos would help you focus on the road more.
Why focus on the road when I have cruise control? Clearly you have no idea how cars work, let alone massively oversized trucks with four doors and a tonneau cover that never gets removed (it reduces wind drag and thus helps the planet. I’m_doing_my_part.gif)
More importantly, nobody is enforcing traffic safety. I was biking along yesterday, and this guy on his phone pulls out in front of me, into the bike lane, completely blocking it and half the car lane, because traffic is already stopped in the car lane.
Idiots.
It feels like we were all so incredibly concerned about using phones while driving and then after about 10 years of them being commonplace, everyone just stopped caring.
There are states where you can’t even drive with your phone on a stand in front of you unless the navigation app is present (I think Virginia?) But if a cop catches your phone on your hand or dash with anything but navigation or you driving distracted while driving you are getting pulled over
Sure, but how many actually get caught? I was just in CA and they have similar rules, and I saw a room of people on their phones while driving. It’s just so commonplace that enforcement is an absolute joke.
So if enforcement isn’t working, the next best thing is to quarantine cars. Reduce the routes cars can take through cities, improve transit, and make more separate bike and pedestrian lanes. If people are going to do stupid stuff regardless, at least let them only impact other drivers, not the more vulnerable portion of the public that share the streets.
