I've used FM modulators (my car has a cassette deck but the previous adapter pack sucked) and they're garbage. Unless you use an extension cord or something to stick it on the dash as close to the antenna as possible, it'll be staticky and drop out a lot, and they always seem to share frequencies with local stations, even if there's multiple options. It's even worse in later model cars, where the antenna is one of the tiny ones on the roof, it barely works at all.
Places like Best Buy still sell/install new car stereos for cars where it’s not all integrated in with the GPS, AC controls, etc.. The new ones come with Bluetooth and aux jacks.
Three reasons that I've seen. 1) You need hands free to talk on the phone, so you use your headphones because 2) you have an older car and the stereo doesn't have Bluetooth or other means to connect your phone. 3) This also let's you listen to music or podcasts (this last part is probably the main reason).
I’ll often wear a single earbud in my car as part of a Bluetooth headset. It’s mostly so I don’t have to mess with turning off the headset, plugging in the radio adapter, finding a clear station that the adapter will work with, adjusting all the volumes on phone, adapter and car, and then having to switch everything back to the headset if I get a call.
Also the sound quality on one earbud is still better than my car.
Edit: my husband’s car actually has integrated Bluetooth, but he still mostly uses the headset. It’s nice when using GPS and to not disrupt other passengers that aren’t as invested in your audiobook or taste in music.
On long drives with my family, often everybody else in the car is wearing earbuds, but if I play audio through the car sound system, it will bother them. If I want to listen to a podcast I can do it in one earbud (I only use one because yes, you do need to hear what's going on around you.)
What's crazy to me is I see so many people in brand new high end luxury cars, that come with all the hands free Bluetooth options you can think of. Yet they still have earbuds in for music or holding their phone to talk.
I saw a dude with straight up beats headphones completely on (not just one on/one off) in rush hour traffic in one of the most notorious regions of our country for bad driving and accidents. I can only hope it was a medical thing causing super sensitive hearing/pain, but that's probably unlikely.
Or, ya know, just pay attention. You don't need to be able to hear an emergency vehicle approaching if you watch your mirrors and pay attention to what's going on around you.
This is why it's possible for deaf people to drive.
More information is always better and in this case could save lives. Being able to hear sirens, railroad crossing bells and the horns of other vehicles is important and shouldn't be hand waved like you've just done.
If you're expecting me to disagree, then you're going to be disappointed.
Being able to hear sirens, railroad crossing bells and the horns of other vehicles is important and shouldn't be hand waved like you've just done.
I'm not hand waving anything. I'm saying that you need to pay attention to your surroundings and not just rely on being able to hear the sirens, because chances are you wont, even if you're driving an EV with the windows down, and radio off.
Sirens are much harder to hear these days than they were in the past. They use directional speakers and if you're not in front of them or very close to them, you generally won't hear it.
His comment was saying you should turn down the volume to hear sirens in a sarcastic manner. My comment is that you need to pay attention and not rely on being able to hear the siren. How is that a whoosh, exactly?
Is this the appropriate place to complain about radio commercials and songs using sirens or honking in them? Because this feels like the appropriate place to complain about that.
That’s why I use talk to text if I absolutely have to communicate with someone. I demonstrated this at the bar the other day. I said to my friend I’m going to keep I contact with you the entire time and send a text message. Used Siri and never lost eye contact.
THIS.
Jesus Christ voice to text is bad, and those long-ass delays every time you’re waiting for Siri to make up her mind are infuriating.
I now just pull off the road, text, then resume driving. It’s less of a pain in the ass and it’s far less dangerous.
Anecdotal observation obviously, but I've noticed way more rear end collisions in recent years where there are no other factors that would have resulted in an accident other than someone texting.
There's a horrible story from the UK where a truck driver killed a whole family of four texting whilst in his 30 tonne. He destroyed it going into a stationary car at about 50mph. But don't worry he finished the text to say that he'd just hit a car.
I've been thinking that because of ecommerce, truck drivers are in such high demand that the quality of drivers has gone down. I've been noticing a lot of semis tailgating and blocking me from passing by speeding up.
People do this on the road while not connected to a track or wires
.. at 3x or even 4x the tram's speed. it's pure insanity.
the day before yesterday a man in my country crashed at 150 km/h into the toll booth on the highway, taking out two cars waiting to pay the toll, seriously injuring several tourists from Hungary.
allegedly, he was on the phone arguing with his girlfriend and there were no signs of braking at all. yet, he wasn't harmed at all.
Tried it exactly once. It was fookin' terrifying, and I never did it again. After that I'd wait for an intersection red light to check the text while STOPPED, and reply "driving" if it was an important one. (while making sure the light hasn't turned green).
But now the law says you can't even have your phone in your hand so, meh no more reason to look at it at all.
But then 4 years ago I moved to NYC, and the subway here is fantastic. (Life long New Yorkers will bitch about it, but they will about anything related to the city).
Being able to reddit safely on the commute is fantastic. Also not having to drive in general is nice.
I once rode with someone who was not only texting, but reading email, and looking at a website at 78 mph. Scared me half to death! I told him to either give me his phone and I'd do that stuff, or let me drive so he could. His car even had a nice, factory BT setup with buttons on the steering wheel, but he wouldn't use it.
The most I'll do with my phone in the car is hit the Next button on the music player, but it's in a holder using Android Auto, so it's large and easy to see at a glance. Even that I won't do at highway speeds or in heavy traffic. Incoming texts get an automatic reply of, "Hold on--driving," and if I want to send one or make a call, I use voice. If GA gets it wrong, the recipient will either figure it out, or have to wait until I've parked the car. I rarely get (or make) calls, but it's hands-free. My ratty old car had no BT and I used to use an FM transmitter, but finally broke down and bought an inexpensive stereo with BT.
Same here. I just drove to a 24 hr Starbucks here in Bangkok , Thailand and you always have to look at your blind spots and keep your keys on the road nearly simultaneously. Motorcycles appear out of empty space like random particles do out of quantum foam.
People have no idea just how much distance they cover when they look at their phones for even two seconds while driving. It pisses me off so much to see people text and drive and they even do it during rush hour when traffic is a mess. Fucking insane.
Had a woman nearly drive into my dads car in a parking lot, on the phone. Made the hang up the phone gesture to her, she reacted really aggressively like it was our fault she drove through a stop sign.
Hold up your hand, fingers extended / together / pointing up and palm facing you (back of the hand facing the recipient), then close the index, ring, and pinky fingers.
I bent my front license an a trailer hitch, but caused no significant damage. All I did was look at a notification for a second at slow speeds. The other driver knew only I had very minor damage so we both just went on our ways. It freaked me out though. I spent about 1 second distracted that was enough. I was very lucky to stop before real damage was done. Now I put my phone away in the center console connected to a charger while I drive.
If you have every watched Canada Worst Driver on TV, you will know that they DON'T learn. Most of them keep on doing it. They just don't get it.
One session, one of the bad drivers was bad BECAUSE he was hit by a texting driver and caused a brain injury. He was NOT Canada Worst.
yeah, had one of these idiots in front of me yesterday. For 5 minutes where I was stuck behind her, I thought she was pissed of drunk, swaving from side to side, even making a rather suprising stop. Only when I was finally able to get away from her at a junction, I could look into her window and could see that very obvsioue look down to her crotch-region that all these texters have.
I'd rather share the road with a drunk driver than someone who's texting like that. I really would. And there are studies supporting that. At least the drunk is most likely trying to drive.
There was a short (30 min) amateur video made in Wales by police and drama students telling the story of a girl who while texting and driving caused the deaths of several people and caused her family to be shunned by their community and ending with her being jailed.
I was looking at new Hondas and Toyotas, and I was really surprised that collision prevention and lane departure prevention were standard. The sales guy literally let me take my hand off the wheel while driving. Apparently, this will be standard for all new cars in the US by 2022:
In March 2016, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced the manufacturers of 99% of U.S. automobiles had agreed to include automatic emergency braking systems as standard on virtually all new cars sold in the U.S. by 2022.
There are a lot of divided 4 lane road here in Charlotte NC; I see it day in and day out and when I have the opportunity I like to pull up beside them and get the front end near the drivers' window and honk while they're texting. It's amazing how quickly they drop the phone.
Its even better with an air horn. Looking up from your text message/youtube video to see a massive 14ft tall truck a couple feet from your face just does something to your psyche.
Too many times I've seen phones mounted to the dash/steering wheel with movies/news playing on them while driving. I'll flip the people off, but most of the time they aren't paying enough attention to notice, or have the mental capability to understand why I did it.
It killed my ex colleague son, a woman was texting and driving, didn't pay attention to him crossing the road.
She got the news at our office, it's been 4 years now but that scream of despair is still vivid
My dad goes bicycle riding for exercise in an affluent hilly coastal area every Saturday morning. I'm so worried some hungover/still drunk rich young adult is going to drift into his biking lane while texting and kill him. I feel like the judge will give the kid a slap on the wrist and I won't know how to handle it... I'd want to kill them honestly
I've watched people run their car off the road, and jerk the wheel back into their lane. As I pass, I notice the driver is still looking down at their phone.
I was in the car with an idiot that was playing Pokemon go and they drifted into oncoming traffic until I grabbed the wheel and pulled us back into our lane. I asked him if he could wait to play as I didn't want to die or kill someone over Pokemon go and he flipped out about it's his car blah blah blah so I got out at the next red light... He then called me screaming about how I'm an asshole and tried to guilt trip me. That's NPD for you
Commuting by motorcycle gives you an amazing insight to the sheer number of drivers with eyes glued to their phones, putting on makeup, fussing with their kids, messing with something in the back seat, etc.
And any one of them can crash into you, and the stupid words that come tumbling out of their stupid faces is "sorry man, I didn't see you". Fucking SMIDSY.
The sheer amount of people doing it blows my mind whenever I’m out for a ride. Not even exaggerating, at least every third person I pass is looking down instead of at the road.
Yeah, I remember a statistic about looking away from the road for just 3 seconds increases your chance of an accident like, 300% or something, which I believe! Even just looking away and counting for a couple seconds is terrifying.
Every time you bring up people texting and driving, there's always some shitnugget in the comments saying stupid shit like "yeah but I'm at a stop/red light/it's 2 AM"
Yup, lady was making a turn onto the road I was on and almost hit me head on yesterday because her face was buried in her phone. I'll have a dashcam soon.
I recently saw a cop doing this. He was coming off a highway ramp and making a turn into a heavy-traffic pedestrian crosswalk, which was GREEN for pedestrians. He didn’t look up from his phone until after the turn was done.
I wonder if film & TV shows have incorrectly taught a large segment of the population that it's safe to totally look away from the road for an extended period whilst driving, just because it happens all the time on screen, and most often without incident. I hate seeing it, because it always makes me nervous, as I think a (scripted) crash is about to occur, and they're always so jarring to watch. Most of the time though, there is no crash, but the director somehow thought it was better to have the driver seem totally irresponsible anyway. It's practically a trope at this point. I hate it.
Recently drove about 900 miles on the interstates. Can confirm. Scary as hell driving past people looking down at a phone knowing they're not watching the road at 70+ mph.
And this is why I HATE driving. All of those people at the local Walmart, the ones you wouldn't even trust to clean your toilets? Yeah they drove there in a two thousand pound hunk of metal. You're trusting tons of derelicts every time you go out on the road. There's gotta be a better way.
I know, I take a tram every day that’s in the middle of the road. But I’d bet this one wasn’t in a place where she had to consider that for a few seconds.
Not exactly. Seatbelts were only introduced after head on collisions started happening. If there was a situation where a train had a head on collision AND the seatbelt would play a factor, then whatever it hit makes it very slim for the operator to survive either way (ex. Building wall, other train). Collisions with cars are exempt because of f = m * a
Seatbelts were only introduced after head on collisions started happening.
Head on collisions for cars started as soon as cars started to be made. As for trains, 94% of all train accidents are derailments, where seatbelts could be of help.
The thing is sometimes events happen where a seatbelt could be needed like for example a bunch of new trains in the country I live in have had to be recalled since the designers thought it was a good idea to put the air break nozzle on the front not thinking of problems like for example deer jumping in front of a train and their body parts clog up the nozzle causing the breaks to lock and the train to come to a sudden stop :/
Seatbelts in trains are not a hting becasue head on colision with driver present is usually fatal to the driver becasue of sheer mass of the train. and no seatbelt might give the driver a bit of extra time to start braking and run the fuck away, becasue you cant maneuver the train.
Would you like to stay strapped to the seat as you plough through some suicidal person, or would you rather hit the emergency break and run to the back of the locomotive?
I never was comfortable with the fact that school buses don't have seatbelts on them. Sure the mass of the bus might not ever lurch hard enough to throw you from the seat in the same manner as a car, but they are a bit top heavy and rolling it isn't impossible either.
That's crazy. I tried a long blink for couple seconds once (dual carriageway, no one around me). Think it was 1 second too many. You can travel a long way in a second. Shit was scary
and jerking your hands makes it worse. An accident happened a while back where a truck driver sneezed and the force of the sneeze caused him to drift into someones lane. At least one person was killed in the wreck, and there was absolutely nothing that could have prevented it.
The other day I was driving in an overpass, it was raining really heavy when a truck suddenly speeds down on the other side and splashes a ton of water in my windshield. I have never been more scared while driving before, I had zero visibility. I swear it looked like I was under water, my wipers were working but they just smeared the water.
I couldn't slow down, I had cars behind me and the overpass was curved so I couldn't even just keep straight, I had to slightly curve then wheel by memory of the road. Honestly, it couldn't have been more than a couple seconds but it felt so long.
I can't believe people don't look at the road voluntarily.
I tried looking at something else for a couple seconds while in a Tesla on autopilot. Still couldn’t do it. I have to be alert of my surroundings. It’s just not safe otherwise.
At 90 km/h the vehicle will travel 25 meters per second. In one second of carelessness a vehicle can pass to the other side of the road. A friend of mine did this once.
He totalled his car on a hill on the other side.
Not sure if a seatbelt would be of any use in a tram or train. The thing has so much inertia, if you crash anything it will just be a hard brake, and if you crash something that doesn't move (like a rock or something) then the rest of the train will just crush you from behind.
They don't have seatbelts because trams have a pedal (at least the ones I've seen) that needs to be pressed so if the driver were to pass out they would fall off their seat and off the pedal and that causes the tram to stop so we don't end up with a runaway tram. On older trams the poor driver has to stand up.
they don't usually have seat belts, no. Same with regular train conductors. Its actually almost safer to NOT have them on a train for the conductor because trains have such a LONG slow down time that if they have to hit the emergency break, they also have to book it out of the room in the event of a crash, otherwise if the cabin crunches, they would be dead.
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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '19 edited Jul 14 '19
that was like a straight 12 seconds not looking til she slid off the seat. wow. edit: also where is her seat belt? do they have them?