Driver assist tools leading to disconnected drivers?

For a while I carpooled to a vocational college with my teacher. When picking me up, as often as not he had a beer cradled between his legs, and was shaving (electric). The worst episode, eastbound on the Georgia Viaduct, he was fiddling with the radio tuning, and heading directly for this:



He looked up just in time, swerved.

 

In my youth, I once flicked a cigarette butt out of my van window and unbeknown to me it had blown back in and gone in the back of the van where there was a new hessian tow rope which caught fire

 

Not sure that's better or worse than a failed catarrh ejection!

 

I google hessian tow rope, and next thing I know I'm wandering around in:

John Richards Surplus Ex-Military and General Surplus

 

From my perspective, that is quite preferable to starting a roadside wildfire. At least the guilty party learns of the problem, and pays the consequences, rather than merrily and unknowingly driving away without any personal cost.

(N.B. My perspective on this may be a bit biased. When I was very young, my biological father was pulled from his regular USFS job and pressed into emergency service supporting a fire crew for a similar type of wildfire caused by human carelessness. During that service, he was killed in a transport accident.)

 

This thread seems curiously appropriate...

Cars shouldn't let friends drive drunk | PriusChat

 

There have always been potential distractions while driving. Whether that was an 8 track player or a Smart Phone.
I think what has changed is the tools and acceptance of disengagement.

I think we have now, more than ever, a generation that focuses on those tools. Staring down at Smart Phones, engaging with hand held devices, connecting with distraction in numerous forms. And way too often disengaging with their immediate environment.

My opinion, but it seems like a lack of spatial awareness, and the unfortunate ability to tune out the world directly around us, far too easily. It's walking through a mall, having a hands free conversation with someone in a totally different local. To the outside world, having a open air conversation with an unseen ghost.
My imagination? Getting old? But it seems like when I go to the grocery store, more and more people will block entire aisles, with their shopping cart, staring at their purchase choices like they are entranced by the choice between Chunk Light Tuna and Solid Alabacore.
Only after 5-10 seconds have elapsed to awaken from the trance and suddenly realize they have been blocking the aisle.
It's scarier when I drive now, because people seem to IMO overly trust painted cross walks. Simply "wandering" into streets, sometimes while using a cell phone, not even looking or aware of the cars, really just trusting they will stop for them.

As a little child growing up in the suburbs, one of the first things my parents tried to teach me was, never, NEVER when crossing a street, either at a signal or crosswalk or otherwise, never trust that a car is going to stop for you. Always make sure. Be aware and attentive EVERY time you cross a street.

We have a generation now, that doesn't seem to of been taught that. They will walk out into a street without looking, they will risk their lives at casual cost, by assuming a vehicle will stop for them.
People just don't seem to be as in tune and connected to their environments as they use to be. Now they carry their "personal" environments with them in the form of tablets and smart phones.

There is no going back. Well....aside from a Science Fiction apocalypse scenario, but in general the technology is not going to reverse. We are going to have transportation options that are more and more automated. That do allow us to disengage more and more from our awareness of the immediate task around us.
In a way, I feel by the time fully automated transportation options are entirely available and common, we will probably need them, because by that time we will have a population so use to the insulation of disengagement technology can provide, that the idea of embracing all the "responsibilities" driving an archaic "automobile" of my time, will seem ridiculously challenging.
It would be like someone coming to me and taking my car away, and saying...OK now...take care of, and ride a horse. I just wouldn't know how to do it.
If I live long enough, I think stories of a time where you had to steer, brake, judge speed and distance, and even look both ways before crossing a street, might sound like living in the stone ages.
In the meantime....I like Solid Albacore...in water. And don't turn you shopping cart horizontally and block the entire aisle as you muse about whether you want to buy the store brand or the national brand. And really? Look up and around once in a while. You might find the world around you and engaging with it, is worth the effort.

 

There are now several European towns that have installed pavement level lights that can be either showing Red or Green depending whether it's safe to cross the road. This because of the hypnotised smartphone users blindly stepping in front of the traffic flow.

Bring on the DARWIN Award candidates, mindlessly removing themselves from the gene pool!

 

On occasion I have seen flashing lights in the pavement to warn drivers of people crossing. The place I am thinking of was between a hospital entrance and the parking garage across the street.

 

Rock n Roll makes me drive fast.