Had the crash video not been so terrifying, it might have passed for low comedy.
A white pickup truck slammed into a California Highway Patrol cruiser that was parked at the scene of a prior accident. The driver told officers he had been watching YouTube videos on his phone and didn’t see the flares or the stationary patrol car. He didn’t even glimpse the officer who was waving a strobe flashlight, and who had to jump out of the way when the truck barreled in.
The March 3 incident on Highway 101 in Redwood City illustrated a form of driver misbehaviour that’s become more and more common, as screens become normalised in cars. Motorists habitually pick up their phones while sitting in traffic, or scroll dashboard touchscreens as they cruise along a freeway at 65 miles per hour. People have their eyes glued to navigation apps instead of the road.
“We see people reading, watching videos, watching a football game,” said CHP officer Sophie Lu, a spokesperson for the Redwood City division. She posted body-worn camera video of the YouTube watcher crash on social media, warning other drivers to “stay focused behind the wheel.”
Transportation experts worry that these advisories are no match for a screen-addicted culture. Many point to an unsettling paradox of modern driving: Cars are theoretically getting safer, equipped with such features as lane-keeping, emergency braking, rearview cameras, collision warnings and crumple zones. But all of these gains come with a downside. People are over-relying on the technology, and even succumbing to the illusion that the car is the one driving, said Scott Moura, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley.
“Automakers and researchers are reimagining mobility, so it’s more of an experience of being chauffeured, and you can enjoy your favourite HBO show or scroll on TikTok,” Moura said.
As a result, all of our technological gains are being undermined by a rise in distraction. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that 40,000 people die each year on U.S. roads, with the number increasing to nearly 43,000 in 2021 – a 16-year high. According to the administration, distracted drivers caused 3,275 fatal crashes in 2023, with 369 of them linked to cellphones specifically.
In the Bay Area and elsewhere, discussions of road safety often centre on autonomous vehicles. But the real danger might be the cars that aren’t quite autonomous, and the humans sitting behind the wheel, Moura said. If drivers feel they can “offset their mental load” to a technology system that will brake and change lanes, then they might shift their focus to a screen.
Auto manufacturers are catering to that compulsion. Many cars have TV-style monitors on their dashboards, which mix entertainment and functionality. Motorists swipe touchscreens to activate turn signals or put the vehicle in reverse, but they also swipe to change the music or podcast, find faster routes on Google navigation or answer a text from a friend. Cellphone mounts or cradles allow people to access their mobile devices at all times. And last year a new product hit the market: a wireless adapter that ports YouTube and Netflix onto car screens, so that people can stream movies. (California law prohibits videos on screens that are visible to a driver in a moving car.)
Suraj Lama of Richmond said he likes all the technology features on his Tesla Model X, and he trusts that the camera, in particular, prevents collisions. Smiling, Lama gestured to the large screen that lay blank as he charged his Tesla in the El Cerrito Plaza parking lot on Monday. Above the screen was a holder with two sturdy brackets, where Lama mounts his cell phone.
Despite being a bit of a techno-optimist, Lama said he’s noticed the epidemic of distracted driving on Bay Area streets and freeways.
“When I drive my daughter to school, I can see that people aren’t even looking at stop signs,” Lama said. “They’re all on their phones.”
Negligence occasionally leads to horrific tragedy. Last week, a woman in Redding plowed her truck through a red light while using FaceTime. She struck another vehicle and died from the impact, leaving two children with injuries in the back seat.
As motorists become more fixated on their devices, a few automakers are bucking the trend. Volkswagen and Subaru have both shifted away from the “infotainment” screen, and are instead putting buttons and knobs in their new models. Patents filed by Rivian suggest the company’s next line of SUVs and trucks might include old-fashioned dials below a touchscreen. Competitors may follow suit, said Professor Daniel Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis.
“There is a movement in the industry to revert back to knobs,” Sperling said, noting that a lot of consumers prefer physical controls and consider them safer. In a sense, the push for more basic car dashboards parallels the market for “dumb” phones. Technology that initially seemed like an asset may in fact be an impediment. One oft-cited study from 2020 compared drivers impaired in different ways. Some were under the influence of cannabis or alcohol up to the legal limit; others were making calls on handheld devices; still others were swiping to change the music and navigation on Apple- or Android-enabled touchscreens. Among all the groups, the touchscreen users had the slowest reaction times and the worst driving performance.
“We’ve all had the lived experience of using a screen and trying to turn on the radio,” Sperling said, “never mind the air conditioning, the climate control, the navigation and all the other functions. I think it’s pretty widely accepted that distraction has become a greater cause of crashes than before.”
Moura’s research shows that motorists tend to be “binary” about automation, in that they either want to be completely in control of the car and paying attention at all times, or they want to relinquish all responsibility and play on their phones while the car drives them around. Cars in the not-yet-fully-autonomous “gray area” produce cognitive dissonance, Moura said, and give rise to accidents.
“A lot of people have this mentality of, ‘Either I’m driving, or (the car) is driving, and I don’t want to manage with this middle ground,” Moura said.
He understands that many commuters don’t have the patience for skilled, attentive driving. They just want to get from Point A to Point B, plug in their earbuds and scroll through TikTok. And there’s already technology to accommodate that, Moura offered: It’s called a bus. – San Francisco Chronicle/Tribune News Service
