“Driving is the most likely way we’ll kill someone else, but we’re not treating cars like the dangerous things that they are.”

100 times worse than we thought: Insights from a Zendrive’s 2018 Distracted Driving Snapshot

I won't say "distracted walking" doesn't happen, because I've seen it and done it a few times myself. The point to remember is that someone like me who is walking "distracted" carries poundage in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Drivers are coddled daily in myriad ways, but the point stays the same: they're capable of wreaking far greater havoc, and their responsibility is greater, and the law enforcement apparatus should prosecute accordingly.

Do YOU see someone like Keith Henderson doing so? I sure don't, although perhaps the politicized prosecutor agrees with me on one point: put down your damn device and pay attention.

Driving? Your Phone Is A Distraction Even If You Aren’t Looking At It, by Christie Aschwanden (Five Thirty Eight)

... You can think of driving’s demands as a three-legged stool, requiring eyes on the road, hands on the wheel (not to mention feet on the pedals), and mind on the task. Anything less than all three, and you’re driving impaired.

Most attempts to mitigate the risk of cellphone use while driving have focused on the first two legs. Texting while driving is banned in 47 states, and 16 states prohibit drivers from handheld phone use. But legislative approaches like these don’t address the third leg of the distraction stool. “You can’t do a drug test for cognitive impairment,” said Kyle Mathewson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Alberta.

Anything that takes the eyes off the road or hands off the wheel is clearly dangerous.

Distraction kills: "We all know what’s going on, but we don’t have a breathalyzer for a phone."

When you're walking, the scale of the problem quickly becomes evident.

In a sad auto-centric world, it's important for walkers and bicyclists to at least have the safety mechanism of making eye contact with drivers.

Eye contact can't be made through tinted windows, or when their heads are down gazing at phones.

Smartphones Are Killing Americans, But Nobody’s Counting, by Kyle Stock, Lance Lambert, and David Ingold (Bloomberg)

Amid a historic spike in U.S. traffic fatalities, federal data on the danger of distracted driving are getting worse.

 ... Over the past two years, after decades of declining deaths on the road, U.S. traffic fatalities surged by 14.4 percent. In 2016 alone, more than 100 people died every day in or near vehicles in America, the first time the country has passed that grim toll in a decade. Regulators, meanwhile, still have no good idea why crash-related deaths are spiking: People are driving longer distances but not tremendously so; total miles were up just 2.2 percent last year. Collectively, we seemed to be speeding and drinking a little more, but not much more than usual. Together, experts say these upticks don’t explain the surge in road deaths.

There are however three big clues, and they don’t rest along the highway. One, as you may have guessed, is the substantial increase in smartphone use by U.S. drivers as they drive. From 2014 to 2016, the share of Americans who owned an iPhone, Android phone, or something comparable rose from 75 percent to 81 percent.

The second is the changing way in which Americans use their phones while they drive. These days, we’re pretty much done talking. Texting, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are the order of the day—all activities that require far more attention than simply holding a gadget to your ear or responding to a disembodied voice. By 2015, almost 70 percent of Americans were using their phones to share photos and follow news events via social media. In just two additional years, that figure has jumped to 80 percent.

Finally, the increase in fatalities has been largely among bicyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians—all of whom are easier to miss from the driver’s seat than, say, a 4,000-pound SUV—especially if you’re glancing up from your phone rather than concentrating on the road. Last year, 5,987 pedestrians were killed by cars in the U.S., almost 1,100 more than in 2014—that’s a 22 percent increase in just two years.

It comes down to what is deemed acceptable. In my lifetime, attitudes toward driving intoxicated have become vastly more responsible -- drivers still drink and drive, but compared to 50 years ago, it's better.

“I use the cocktail party example,” he explained. “If you’re at a cocktail party and say, ‘I was so hammered the other day, and I got behind the wheel,’ people will be outraged. But if you say the same thing about using a cell phone, it won’t be a big deal. It is still acceptable, and that’s the problem.”

"Congratulations, Honolulu, for battling a surge in pedestrian deaths by punishing prospective victims."

The following words summarize the scandal-plagued Gahan administration's approach (more accurately, its absence) in using Jeff Speck's street study as a blueprint for "grid modernization," or, the project that dare not mention "two-way streets" publicly.

If it bikes, blame it.
If it walks, marginalize it.
If it drives, subsidize it.
-- Attributed to Dan Kostelec

In Honolulu's case, walkers have graduated from marginalization to blame, though not unexpectedly, research doesn't support the notion that pedestrian cellphones are the problem.

Rather, it's just another way of cosseting subsidized drivers.

The Problem With Honolulu's New Ban on Texting in Crosswalks, by Laura Bliss (CityLab)

Elderly pedestrians die at a higher rate in Honolulu than anywhere else. Their cellphones aren’t the issue.

 ... Pedestrians can obviously insert themselves into dangerous situations by ignoring signals and walking into traffic—and they share responsibility in plenty of crashes. Using a cell phone while crossing the street can be a hazard, sure. Inherently dangerous to others, however, it is not.

Driving is. So are many of the streets designed to support it. And using a phone in the driver’s seat dramatically increases the chance of a crash. As the economy recovers, more cars are on the road, driving more miles—which translates to that many more people texting and chatting while navigating their two-ton steel boxes. The recent rash of pedestrian fatalities is not all that surprising.

And:

The city’s overall rate of pedestrian deaths is on par with the national average; so is the state’s. Elderly folks also have a harder time recovering from traumatic injuries, and Hawaii’s 65-plus-set are considerably more active than their mainland counterparts. Older Honolulans die on the streets at a high rate not because they’re consumed by their cell phones, but, largely, because there are more of them navigating car-centric roads.

Price to propose banning car use by cell phoners ... but maybe not.

Earlier today, we rolled our eyes as Steve Price glanced in the general direction of the public interest, then just as hurriedly climbed down from his previous stance of being tepidly in favor of it, at least in the narrowest possible sense of safety pertaining to banning the use of cell phones (primarily texting) while driving.

Scolded by his council colleague, Pat McLaughlin, for not paying heed to statistics (no mention of lies and damned lies), and seemingly terrified of the implications of even the most minimal life of ideas, Price told the Tribune, “I don’t know if this is the time to do that (cell phones) with the budget.”

Well, at least there's some consistency to this position.

When times were good monetarily, he was against public safety expenditures, and now that times are hard, he's still against it. He's even more against it now that he very nearly was exposed as being for it, thanks to the germ of an idea that is, by Price's exceedingly low standards, very nearly sensible.

It isn't clear which is more dangerous: Texting while driving, or nickle-and-diming public safety. At least we see clearly where Price stands on the matter. Add it to the list for 2011, will you?

Price to propose banning bicycle use by all 250-lb council critics ... or maybe not.

To survive in New Albany without dawn-to-dusk doses of tranquilizing chemicals is to accept a fundamental and capricious inequality of gray matter when it comes to governance.

While I was away in Boston, the third council district’s Steve Price – the man who votes “no” the way the rest of us make daily trips to the toilet – rolled over in bed and felt the urge to say “yes” to the notion of saying “no” to the use of cell phones by drivers of automobiles, citing a pressing interest in public safety that somehow never previously has emerged during wide-ranging discussions on other issues, ranging from living conditions in rental properties to working conditions for servers in smoke-filled rooms.

Having duly announced to voters in next year’s election that he possesses some measure of doo-dah rhythm approximating a legislative pulse, and passionately cares for their welfare even if there is little evidence during seven years of congenital underperformance to support such an absurd proposition, Price now has reverted to Drivel Libertarian form with August’s first council meeting just around the corner:

“I don’t know if this is the time to do that (cell phones) with the budget.”

He couldn’t have executed this latest white boy pump fake without a little help from his friends. In the grand tradition accorded the current occupant of the D. Blevins Chair for Persistent Council Indecisiveness, the fourth district’s Pat McLaughlin helped put the brakes on Price’s pretend-stagecraft, noting (wait for it) … Pat hasn’t made up his mind:

“I just haven’t seen the numbers on it yet, and I pretty much go by the statistics.”

If you’re keeping score at home, pull those again Twister games from the cedar closet and try to transcribe Price’s opposition to both code enforcement and the registration of rental properties, his support (albeit lukewarm) for banning cell phone use while driving, his votes against outlawing indoor smoking, and those favoring prohibiting novelty cigarette lighters.

Speaking personally, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen Price texting while behind the wheel, but driving while playing the theme from "Deliverance" on a harmonica?

That’s another matter entirely.