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.
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
124 points (91.9% liked)
News
23266 readers
3491 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
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.
Yeah, Seattle PD do not care about any form of moving violation as far as I can tell.
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)
I know your joking, but I recently got a more modern car which has the lane assist and adaptive cruise control and all I could think was how this was going to enable more distracted driving now.
Ad blockers save lives!
Two cyclists, ☝️ presenting to the emergency room
...with cerebral edema. Cerebral, from Latin, for brain. Edema, from Greek, for swelling. Swelling of the brain
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.
Depends where you live. Here in Australia were rolling out cameras that can detect mobile phone usage whilst driving.
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.
My friend once told me he got so bored while on a road trip by himself he put on porn and jacked off while stuck in traffic.
Sure he wasn't speeding down a highway, but come on man what the fuck
If only there was a mode of transport where you could watch videos.
Not just that, one that would be safer for the environment and cause for less traffic jams!