Chris Morris on distracted driving: "Pedestrians have the right-of-way, and don’t block crosswalks with your vehicles."

True story.

Those of us not cocooned in our cars understand quite well what it is.

Bullying, or the routine aggression that characterizes bad driving behavior.

We’ve all been there. You’re crossing the street, thinking you have a clear path, when the driver waiting at the light starts lurching into the crosswalk, itching for the green signal. Before you know it, you and everyone else crossing has to squeeze around this bully.

Inspired by a recent Jonathan McLeod post (headline: “Stop fucking driving your car at people”), I set out to catalogue a few of the most obnoxious behaviors people routinely engage in behind the wheel of a car.

Intersection bullying — when motorists occupy a chunk of crosswalk real estate that belongs to pedestrians with the right of way — is just one example of the many nasty, antisocial, and downright dangerous things drivers do when they’re interacting with people outside their car.

There’s a ton of bad driving behavior that should be socially unacceptable, but for some reason, granted the anonymity of a car, people engage in it anyway. This routine aggression needs to be called out for what it is — bullying.

Chris Morris nails this one.

MORRIS: Dealing with distracted drivers (Raycom Meets Tom May)

One of the reasons given for New Albany’s street conversion last year was to slow traffic, making it safer to not only drive in the city, but to walk, jog and ride a bike without the fear of being hit by a speeding car.

But city government can’t legislate distracted driving or those motorists who ignore traffic signals and crosswalks. Unless the police see it, not much can be done. So, a year later, are the streets safer?

Let’s say things have improved.

As a regular walker and jogger I see people every day ignore basic principles of driving on a downtown street. The main ones being pedestrians have the right-of-way, and don’t block crosswalks with your vehicles.

Here is what I see regularly at crosswalks: A motorist will pull up to the stop, ignore both me and the crosswalk, and wait for an opening before pulling out into traffic. Even though I was there first, and already had a step in the crosswalk, they just go on as if I were invisible. This one drives me crazy. Crosswalks are there for a reason, to allow walkers a safe path to cross a street.

This happens regularly in the morning as I cross Eighth Street. I usually have to jog behind or between cars because the crosswalk is covered up by a vehicle. It’s like I am invisible as they prepare to pull out onto Spring Street ...

The "distracted pedestrian" is a myth, but distracted engineers and planners are another topic.

Kudos to David Aebersold for broaching the topic of pedestrian safety during last Thirsday's city council meeting. Dan Coffey and Greg Phipps chimed in, and Phipps mentioned the scant slowing of traffic occurring since last year's paving project disguised as street grid reform.

Recalling my recent chat with HWC Engineering's Jim Rice, when Rice seemed proudest of HWC's achievement in keeping the heavy trucks rolling through residential neighborhoods, perhaps Phipps at long last is beginning to see that without Jeff Speck's principled approach to comprehensive street grid reform, two-way automotive friction alone cannot magically produce slowing or walkability -- and the majority of bicycle-friendly design components never made it past Jeff Gahan's ingrained (but highly monetized) cowardice.

I intend to attend tomorrow morning's Bored of Works meeting, which Aebersold and Bob Caesar vowed to attend.

Why the ‘distracted pedestrian’ is a myth, by Alissa Walker (Curbed)

Most walkers are not texting when crossing streets, says a new study

Pedestrian deaths have hit a three-decade high in the U.S., prompting some cities to mount campaigns warning walkers to put down their phones and pay more attention. But some compelling new research reveals that pedestrians probably aren’t texting themselves to death.

While the term “distracted walking” has become a way to pin the blame on pedestrians for supposedly looking at their devices instead of the sidewalk, there hasn’t been much evidence provided to prove smartphone-using walkers are at fault when collisions occur. In fact, most states don’t even include pedestrian behavior as a factor in crash reports.

But a new study published by a group of Northern Arizona University engineering professors in Transportation Research Record looked at how 3,038 people used crosswalks in New York City and Flagstaff, Arizona, and concluded that a large majority of pedestrians—86.5 percent—did not exhibit “distracted” behavior ...

“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.

According to this study, distracted DRIVING is 100 times worse than previously thought, but pedestrians are easier to blame.

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, walking "distracted," carries poundage in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

Drivers are elevated for coddling in many and varied ways, but the point stays the same: they're capable of wreaking far greater havoc, their responsibility is greater, and the law enforcement apparatus should prosecute accordingly.

The state of Indiana hired a consultant to determine why pedestrian deaths have risen, and the result is mostly car-centric bilge and claptrap, but at least one good point emerges.

Increase In Indiana Pedestrian Deaths Follows Concerning National Trend, by Sarah Fentem (WBAA)

Retting says the combination of a good economy and lower gas prices mean more drivers on the road: going to work, traveling on vacations and visiting restaurants—and bars.

“At a minimum, half of pedestrian fatalities are alcohol related,” Retting says. “And that doesn’t begin to take into account drivers and pedestrians that are impaired by alcohol, just not at that high of level.”

As an aside, "more drivers on the road" also helps to explain why the added traffic lane never actually reduces congestion. It's called induced demand, and you can look it up during cigarette breaks while you lobby for 10-lane highways to get you to work, when just leaving a few minutes earlier costs taxpayers so very much less.

Getting back to the heart of the matter:

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

Distracted driving is far worse than we thought. How bad? 100 times worse than the most reliable data available. Zendrive’s 2018 Distracted Driving Snapshot reveals that 69-million drivers use their phones behind the wheel every day, far higher than the 660,000 daily distracted drivers reported by government data.

We also know that we really shouldn’t be playing with our phones while driving, as it contributes to 26 percent of all collisions. But until now, we didn’t have accurate data on the extent of the problem. To mark Zendrive’s 100-billionth mile of driver data analyzed, we tried to quantify how bad the distracted driving problem is in the US ...

 ... Zendrive estimates that 69-million drivers use their phones each day
Compare our findings to previous research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA): NHTSA estimates that 660,000 drivers use their phones during daylight hours. Based on our experience on the streets everyday, these numbers seemed low, and our analysis found that they were low, really low.

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.”

The end of the beginning: "Blame the road design, not the phone."

When one's only strong impression about street design is that it should facilitate his or her rapid passage through populated urban areas, certain nuances are bound to be missed -- "steamrolled" might be a better way of putting it.

Here in New Albany, two-way streets are being put into service this month without the ballyhooed "enhanced" crosswalks being finished. The first such crosswalk was installed earlier this year at Main at W. 1st following a period of years during which City hall insisted it couldn't be done.

ASK THE BORED: Tucson's first rainbow crosswalk -- and we get stuck with dozens of lousy anchors enabled by municipal cowardice.

CM David Barksdale added that in his experience, the flashing lights not only fail to make an impression on drivers far too busy checking their iPhones, but also taper off too quickly once daring walkers have waded into the street.

Allow me to add that if solar-activated yellow flashing lights do not convince drivers to yield to pedestrians, soon-to-be ubiquitous sharrow symbols painted on streets do not convince drivers to share space with bicyclists.

Except that Main Street really hasn't been calmed in terms of design, has it?

With everything being done to encourage humans to pass on foot from the south side to the north side, and vice versa, Main Street remains a high-speed wasteland of automobile-centric design all the way from the sewage treatment plant to the beginning of the beautification area on Mansion Row.

The enhanced crosswalk at W. 1st is pleasant enough, but until street design on both sides supports its use -- and assuming drivers give a damn -- it's a very small pleasantry, indeed.

Just remember: The current realization of two-way streets and improved street design is not the end of a necessary adjustment to New Albany's auto-centric streets.

It's just the end of the beginning. Note that yet another media source blames the car for the accident .. not the driver.

BLAME THE ROAD DESIGN, NOT THE PHONE, by Rachel Quednau (Strong Towns)

In one of many recent news stories on "distracted walking," WPVI-TV Philadelphia reports that a "girl chatting on FaceTime [was] struck and critically injured by [a] car in Abington." As Lloyd Alter, writing for TreeHugger, summarizes it:

There was a serious crash recently near Philadelphia; a fourteen year old girl was crossing a street in a crosswalk, in a school zone, with signs posted on posts and tent signs all over the place saying that pedestrians have right of way. There are no trees, no obstructions, no reason whatsoever that the driver couldn't see that there was a pedestrian.

And yet, unsurprisingly, the WPVI-TV article focuses almost solely on the fact that the now-critically injured girl was on her iPhone when she was hit and implies that she is to blame for her injuries. In the 27-sentence article, there are only two mentions of the driver who struck this high schooler—one to explain that the driver stopped the car after the crash and the other mentioning that "no charges have been filed at this time."

In the article, we read about how bystanders dutifully called 911, how first responders rushed the girl to the hospital, and even how school counselors "have been made available to her peers." However, nowhere do we read that local officials are reassessing the design of the road on which this crash occurred to prevent future crashes from happening ...

Jeffersonville newspaper plucks the low hanging fruit: "Driving demands our full attention."

I remember back in 2016 when the Jeffersonville newspaper's editorial board applied the same level of safe-driving scrutiny to Chloe Allen's death.

Wait -- no I don't.

After all, the editorial board was silent when Mrs. Allen was killed by a driver while in the act of trying to cross Spring Street. City Hall joined in the complicity of silence, and I don't intend to let either of them forget it.

This said, the board's most recent utterance is solid, although "put your goddamned cell phone down and pay attention" might have been made more explicit.

Here's the big takeaway: Having properly used the word "driver" in the editorial rather than car, truck or vehicle, are we to surmise a long overdue change in editorial policy?

In short, no more, "Car hits pedestrian," right?

Yes, it may be Autocentrica USA, but we're never going to get traffic safety right until drivers are held responsible for control of their cars (not the other way around). How we conceptualize a problem plays a large role in resolving it.

Just saying.

Our Opinion: Driving demands our full attention

Crashes can happen in an instant. Stories of drivers becoming distracted — reasons vary from spilled drinks to dropped items, from crying kids to ringing cell phones — are plentiful.

Sometimes drivers make poor judgment calls, passing in heavy traffic, hopping lanes when in a hurry, consuming a beer or two before getting behind the wheel ...

 ... The tragedy serves as a reminder of the dangers of driving. Jumping in the car or pickup truck is a part of our daily lives. It’s so routine that it’s easy to forget the basic tenants of safety.

Team Gahan yawns: "Design streets like gun barrels and people will drive like bullets."

Supposedly our city will have two-way downtown streets by year's end, although as I've often counseled, and see no reason to refrain from doing so at this late date, you're advised to be relentlessly skeptical until the work's actually finished.

Design matters, and two-way streets will help. When they're implemented -- IF they're implemented -- piety will be abundant, and Team Gahan will make frequent reference to enhanced safety.

When the functionaries do this, you should look them straight in the eye even when they react by looking at their shoes (the mayor himself will send for Mike Hall, since he cannot abide unscripted), and say with firmness: That's true; two-way streets are safer.

So what took you so damned long?

The real American carnage and how to stop it, by John Bennett (Connect Savannah)

... When it comes to reducing speeding, the way forward is clear, it’s all about street design, and the need is critical. AAA reports 46.0 percent of drivers surveyed admitted having driven 10 mph over the speed limit on a residential street in the past 30 days, with 10.5 percent reporting they did so regularly or fairly often.

Young millennials were 1.4 times more likely to speed on residential streets.

Speeding is further encouraged when streets are designed like freeways, with multiple wide lanes. No matter what the posted speed limit or how many “radar hotspots” are announced on local radio stations, people drive at speeds that feel “right” to them.

To use a line I cribbed from a Maryland-based advocacy group’s Twitter account, “Design streets like gun barrels and people will drive like bullets.”

Driving 10 mph over the speed limit on residential streets may not seem like a big deal, until you consider how mortality rates increase with speed. A person hit by a car going 20 mph has a 5 percent risk of death.

People hit by cars travelling 40 mph will die 80 percent of the time.

For children and older people, the numbers are even more grim.

Mounting research confirms using a Complete Streets approach — to make streets safe and accessible for people who ride bikes, walk and use transit — reduces crashes for everyone, including drivers.

In Sicily, too: Put down your device and pay attention to driving.

The Sicilian debriefing might take a while, but in the interim, I'll simply note that our Mt. Etna excursion driver/guide offered scathing comments about the encroachment of distracted drivers in his neck of the woods. Given that driving in a place like Sicily involves a good deal more negotiation than we're accustomed to indulging in L'America, my hunch is that enforcement there eventually will be as draconian as the drunk driving laws, which typically involve zero tolerance.

Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps, by Neal E. Boudette (New York Times)

The messaging app Snapchat allows motorists to post photos that record the speed of the vehicle. The navigation app Waze rewards drivers with points when they report traffic jams and accidents. Even the game Pokémon Go has drivers searching for virtual creatures on the nation’s highways.

When distracted driving entered the national consciousness a decade ago, the problem was mainly people who made calls or sent texts from their cellphones. The solution then was to introduce new technologies to keep drivers’ hands on the wheel. Innovations since then — car Wi-Fi and a host of new apps — have led to a boom in internet use in vehicles that safety experts say is contributing to a surge in highway deaths.

After steady declines over the last four decades, highway fatalities last year recorded the largest annual percentage increase in 50 years. And the numbers so far this year are even worse. In the first six months of 2016, highway deaths jumped 10.4 percent, to 17,775, from the comparable period of 2015, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“This is a crisis that needs to be addressed now,” Mark R. Rosekind, the head of the agency, said in an interview ...

"Lorry driver who killed four while using phone jailed for 10 years."

I'm just going to leave this here.

Lorry driver who killed four while using phone jailed for 10 years, by (The Guardian)

Tomasz Kroker was scrolling through music on his mobile when he hit car carrying woman and three children

A lorry driver who killed a woman and three children when his vehicle ploughed into their stationary car while he was scrolling through music on his mobile phone has been jailed for 10 years.

Tracy Houghton, 45, her sons, Ethan, 13, Josh, 11, and stepdaughter, Aimee, 11, died instantly when Tomasz Kroker drove his lorry into their car at 50mph. Their car was shunted underneath the back of a heavy goods vehicle and crushed to a third of its size.

An hour earlier, Kroker, 30, had signed a declaration to his employer promising he would not use his phone at the wheel.