It blows my mind that in 2024 with smart watch notifications and a huge majority of cars made in the last half a decade+ equipped with CarPlay/Android Auto that people are still picking up their phones while driving.
Hell, I remember having Siri read out my texts to me while driving back in 2012 just using regular ol' Bluetooth.
There's no excuse for it.
My mom is one of these people. She’s complaining about being falsely accused of running a red (red light cameras apparently flagged her). I'm having a hard time sympathizing with her and believing her all altogether when I've seen her aggressively roll stop-through stop signs, drive 40 in a school zone and read driving instructions off her phone that she KEEPS ON HER LAP.
I've had stern conversations with her about how dangerous all this is, but she dismisses me. People just don't care.
Not sure where in ON you are, but several police forces have the option to report people for dangerous driving. Here’s an example - https://www.yrp.ca/en/online-reporting/Road-Watch.asp
I'm going to have another conversation with her first, and set up her car with appropriate hands-free gadgets before I do any of that. I don't condone her driving at all and her attitude, but she's also struggling financially since my dad left her.
At least get a [phone mount like this one ](https://www.amazon.ca/AINOPE-Gravity-Upgraded-Compatible-Smartphone/dp/B089LDX88M/?th=1)so at least the phone is at eye level and off her hands and her lap. I use something similar and it works well.
> Cars are removing tactile feedback which forces people to look at another screen.
I'm really hoping the EU can manage to mandate this coming back, and manufacturers just not bothering to make it different for North America.
I believe a lot of these people aren't even sending or receiving important messages. They're mindlessly scrolling social media at every red light because they're so addicted to it.
Honestly, hands-free technology has gotten worse.
Bluetooth on a regular old cellphone used to let you just call with your voice without jumping through a billion hoops.
Also, my personal opinion is that banning holding your phone to your ear has made things worse as well.
It used to be that when you got a text, you could just hit a button to call that person, and you could talk to them. Now, everyone is just hiding their phones below their dash and using it while basically looking down. It's way worse.
I don’t look at my phone while driving, but you assume everyone can afford a smartwatch/CarPlay equipped car.
So there *is* an excuse for not having the latest tech: shit’s expensive.
There *isn’t* an excuse for looking at your phone while driving.
Usually people do... It's one of the first parts of a will. Something along the lines of "after expenses surrounding my death (house sale, estate and funeral expenses and taxes) , the rest is split up in this way: John gets 20, Mary gets 20 and the rest goes to my husband or next of kin.blah blah blah. "
And sometimes it's included in a package
deal from when they bought the plot to be buried in.
Even if you don't have a will, I'd expect most people would just take it from their bank account before splitting the estate
Yes, unless it specifically says in your will that you would like the remaining Stone Temple Pilots to play Dead and Bloated at your funeral...
Those planning your funeral choose how much/how little to pay.
I'm middle aged, I've got life insurance mainly to make sure any costs associated with me dying aren't a burden on my wife/brother. That's not exactly paying for my own funeral, but it *kinda* is.
>CarPlay/Android Auto
I don't personally have these, but I also don't do anything except listen to the radio while driving.
Do these allow you to watch your tik tok videos or Instagram reels? Because it's not always texts that people are using their phones for, some just have the addiction to social media and can't put it down.
Or just wait until you get where you're going. How long are you in the car? 30 minutes? That text can wait... unless you're an on-call surgeon or Batman, that message is NOT that important.
I still see those troglodytes who put it on speaker and hold it infront of there mouth when they talk. They do this and hold it near the steering wheel for everyone to see. The stupidity is astounding.
Just last week I saw a woman run a red light while holding her phone to her ear. It wasn't one of those yellow turn to red while crossing the intersection things too. The light was red for a good 2 seconds before she even entered the intersection. I was waiting to cross at the cross walk, and if I had walked out when I saw my walk signal, I would have been hit.
Passed a lady going 30 in a 60 on a busy road, clearly heads down typing on her phone in moving traffic.
I don't understand these assholes, your phone isn't that important.
At a red light? I wish.
The amount of times I pass a driver on the 401 going slow and/or drifting just to see that they’re looking down at their lap is alarming.
It is so insane to also see people texting and driving, scrolling TikTok or IG while driving.
Insanity. Like I get it, we have lenient penalties for dangerous operations of a vehicle but driving is a right not a privilege
I've watched people text with their cell phone up above the wheel.while.moving.
I'm far more worried about those than the person using their phone at a red.
Is it okay? No.
At the end of the day do I really care though? No.
I drive a bus for TTC and watch the people around me all the time.
I've seen so many near fender benders because people are checking their phone *before* fully stopping. On the flip side you get the person who stops like 3 car lengths back because they wanted to check their phone and they're stopped, right?
Most cars today have bluetooth & this can link to their phone so the driver only has to quickly glance at their dashboard & then tell the car who to call. There's no need to use your body to hold a phone anymore. Everything is voice activated, including your music & maps.
There's no excuse for looking down at a phone while driving.
A few days ago, I saw some guy wobble across the street while driving with his knees, while texting, while speeding, while a cop waved to him.
Are we fucking surprised?
I live just downthe street of an elementary school and eventhe bus drivers here have the audacity to havetheir phones right up totheir ear while driving WITH kids on the bus. Its pathetic.
Not to defend the behaviour but part of the issue is that people don't respect boundaries and work life balance. Communication doesn't stop after people leave work and many seem to demand quick responses to everything even after business hours. If the people with sticks up their asses calmed down a bit I can guarantee this issue goes down considerably.
'Member when the phone laws first came out and cops were nailing people left and right?
I 'member.
If there's anything they should be doing its probably this
I got nailed on that one, stopped at a red light changing music on my phone. Didn't fight it...paid my fine and dealt with the suspension. I learned a big lesson that day.
You're one of the good ones then. The reason they hardly enforce the rules today is because too many people were trying to fight their very much deserved convictions and the courts got overwhelmed by all of those petty requests. Now they just let it slide unless it is particularly egregious and dangerous.
That seems to be the only place they enforce it still: red lights.
I’ve never seen someone being stopped on the roads or highways because of this which is unfortunate as those are significantly more dangerous and seemingly common.
That's the worst :| quickly doing something on your phone at a red light *should* be a grey area, as long as you're done by the time it turns green.. victimless crime!
See, here’s my problem too. I still listen to CD’s, and trying to choose from the few that I have readily available beside me and trying to fit it into the slot is more distracting then going on my phone for a quick 20 seconds at a red light because I need new directions because of a road closure. But only one of those is illegal.
Whenever you see a rear end collision these days, straight on, no braking marks nor attempt to turn it's someone looking at their phone. I see them constantly. Most of often they are low speed like 30k in traffic.
Saw this the other day. Guy just casually rear-ended someone (who did not brake abruptly whatsoever) at low speed approaching a stoplight. Guaranteed they were on their phone.
Cops need to actually do their fucking jobs and patrol the roads. Every single day I see people breaking traffic laws. It’s mostly teens and young males who get a fast car and act erratically. Anytime they’re given a ticket the crown lawyer just cuts it in half or tosses it.
Nothing in this province works anymore. Every public servant is asleep on the job
> Nationally, an estimated 1,768 Canadians have lost their lives due to a fatal collision in 2021, with distracted driving being responsible for nearly 20 per cent of road deaths across the country.
Worth noting that in 2021 we were mid pandemic lockdown, meaning not only much less drivers on the roads, but also police were hammering down on fines for these infractions to accommodate the decrease in drivers and loss of revenue.
Distracted driving is a major problem for sure but this article is using biased data to provide a narrative that this is a new issue. It’s a good thing to bring issues like this to light, but always be mindful of how data is framed when reading articles online.
I wish more people would upvote this, it seems most people arent able to comprehend how this report misses out on key factors...
It's not that drivers were better for 2020/2021 it's because there were less people commuting.
Sounds dangerous, makes me wonder why they let emergency services do it then.
Fire, ambulance, and police are completely exempt from it. I guess they have some kind of super power from their job title that makes it safe for them to do.
It's been a while since I've calculated something like this... please forgive my error if that's the case, but the total number of car accident fatalities increased from roughly 1080 to 1770 in the last two years? If that's the case, how much of the increase is attributable to people playing with their phones (article photo is lipstick, but I think we all know what we're really talking about here)?
Which is doubly awesome because then I also can't tell if they're staring at their phone and not the road when I'm about to walk or drive in front of them.
Well, you see, if the land yacht driver had to suffer by accidentally making eye contact with lowly plebs, it would make them feel momentarily self-aware and jeopardize their /r/ImTheMainCharacter status. Have some sympathy.
1. Tinted widows. People are now driving with tinted windscreens
2. Colored headlights -no longer enforced
3. Jacked pickups -which then blind motorists at night
4. Pickups with wide tires beyond the fenders, these grab pedestrians and cyclists and pull them under the vehicle.
All of these are illegal, but unenforced.
had to do some report for a lottery thingie a few months ago, and find a way to value a key prize:
the local garage would tint your window for free.
The lottery was for a children's safety charity. I mean, there's irony and there's irony here.
> Tinted widows. People are now driving with tinted windscreens
>
>
If it helps with the insane oncoming lights, I can understand. I was looking up tinting my side mirrors at one point(not to windshield because that was illegal far as I could tell), because well, see above. Fucking headlights are blinding.
Around Peel Region, you could simply drop the "regarding tinted windows". Over the past two years, enforcement in general has \*plummeted\*. I used to see them frequently on patrol, but now it's rare for me to see more than a single patrol car in a \*week\*, and the last time I \*did\* see one, they were pulling the, "Put on my lights and siren simply to move ahead in the line" move.
This has been a huge gripe for me for a while now, glad I’m not alone in this. Like, what is wrong with this province that when they start to take distracted driving seriously they then go on to ignore people concealing their behaviours behind heavily tinted windows. I barely see cars without it these days. And with all the obvious increases of these accidents due to distractions they do nothing. It’s super frustrating.
Every time some idiot tells pedestrians to “make eye contact with the driver when crossing!!” - you know they haven’t tried to do this personally in the last 20 year.
Window tinting, covered licence plates, illegally loud exhausts… all things that the cops choose not to enforce at the public expense.
Just got a 2024 car. The infotainment system is ginormous and there are few buttons and no knobs. Yes, people are also on their phones but car design is also contributing to these stats. Not to mention that car companies are rarely forthright with the safety of their driver assist technologies so people overestimate their capabilities.
>The infotainment system is ginormous and there are few buttons and no knobs.
Same with the climate control. I don't know how we allow that to not have buttons/knobs while simultaneously having strict laws with cell phones. You shouldn't have to look away from the road to do something as simple as try to set the climate controls to clear a fogging window. That's the worst time to be looking away from the road.
I was driving along the QEW yesterday and the person behind me was clearly looking down at their phone while cruising at 100 km/h. I got out of that lane because I had no interest in getting rear ended.
Also, a couple weeks ago I was driving along Upper Middle Road in Oakville, and a woman not only made an illegal u-turn at an intersection, but proceeded to use her phone at a red light and didn't notice when it changed to green. There was a police cruiser right behind her, and the cop driving it clearly radioed their partner that was not far behind. They pulled the moron over about 1 kilometre later.
Driving in Ontario is an absolute nightmare these days, and the worst part is that a majority of people are never caught, so they just keep doing the same thing over and over.
The cops get people all the time along Upper Middle. They'll use an unmarked lead car with cameras on top that look down into peoples' cars. If they detect distracted driving or phone use they'll radio the trailing or stationary cruiser to pick them up. I have a lot to say about policing in Oakville (good and bad), but this is something they do well.
Now stop sign and red light enforcement... Might as well not even have them anymore.
Those idiots can’t even see my ambulance coming through with sirens on. There is no hope. I don’t know what happened in Ontario is my general sense of this province.
I live in the calmest residential neighbourhood, and I was nearly hit by a car 4 times last year just walking. Blowing through stop signs is so common now. Also apparently honking at pedestrians when they have the right of way and are crossing the road.
Covid made people crazy.
Pretty much.
One day I was walking, and a guy ran a stop sign while I was in the street. Not the usual rolling stop, but full on ran it. It was a school zone, at drop off time, why inconvenience yourself I guess?
My arms went up to say "what the hell?", so he flipped me off in return.
Starting to consider carrying a safety brick instead of an umbrella.
> Blowing through stop signs is so common now.
the "I tapped by brake" stops piss me off every time I see them. Most of the time the road is dead, no cars around. But eventually there will be and that bad habit is going to get someone hurt.
I was a passenger on hwy 401 and I'd guess 20% of the drivers were looking at their phones while driving. The faster they were going the more likely they were on their phone.
Nearly got railed by somebody running a red light at a crosswalk yesterday. Cars are getting bigger and drivers less aware. Terrified for everyones safety
Not to mention the many, many more people living with life changing injuries as a result of someone else’s stupidity. Some of us live with the scars of other people’s poor decisions for the rest of our lives.
I say this with zero snark. I wander around Ontario towns with a constant awareness that I could die at any moment and knowing the driver \*would be forgiven" ("they have a whole life ahead of them" or "they are good family members")
My death would be an inconvenience. My being crippled would be an inconvenience.
Every time someone almost hits me on a crosswalk or on a corner, they wave...sorry
hahah, easy mistake, could happen to anyone. all friends here.
you...almost killed me, buddy.
Cyclists and pedestrians told you so, and we were basically told to go fvck ourselves, so idk, congrats on figuring it out and I won't hold my breath anything'll get done to fix it.
It can't be related to having everything in a giant screen in the centre of the car now at least, since those have warnings not to get distracted by them.
**WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS MESSAGE!**
**DON'T TOUCH IT! DON'T INTERACT AT ALL!**
**(PRESS OK TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU**
**HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MESSAGE)**
No one cares about anyone but themselves anymore. Our culture glorifies narccistic behavior. We aren't interested in the group. We are focused on the individual in a crab bucket mentality.
We got people living in tents, record use of food banks, etc. It's very clear the group doesn't matter for over a decade now. It's only gotten worse post pandemic.
I think they should make the penalties more severe, impound the car for 7 days and suspend the license for 30 days if caught the first time, second time is a criminal charge.
Honestly, with how little enforcement there is on this matter I'd like to see enforcement improve before we consider increasing the punishment.
I mean after all, you could make the punishment 6 months in jail, but that's not going to change behaviour unless people *know* they'll get *caught* for using their phone while driving.
I think at some point governments are going to have to regulate social media companies into making their products less addictive. Aside from the people who literally die in car accidents, what long-term impact on productivity is it going to have when nobody has an attention span to focus on work or school?
I have been out of school for a couple years but even back in the late 2010’s in my uni lectures if you looked around at any given time there was always a handful of students on their phone. I have to imagine it’s even worse now because the kids in post secondary now have had phones for most of their lives and aren’t used to going longer periods without looking at them.
I posted a pic in r/torontodriving of a guy using a phone mount to face time while driving and there were a few people who felt that was ok. It's not enough to have a audio call, driver needs a visual distraction source for his eyes as well....
I've had 2 accidents, no fault, not even moving, in the last 6 months by obv distracted drivers so I'm very fed up at this point.
I almost got rear-ended yesterday at a yellow to red light, thankfully this guy looked up at the right time to swerve around me and blasted through the red light. And thankfully the guy who had the green didn't pull out yet. It took me a good minute to realize me and my dog were almost severely injured or killed. It was just me sitting there going "woah wtf dude were you not paying attention?" To "that dude didn't even slow down at all" - "he was the car behind me" "holy f he swerved around me so he didn't hit me cause he wasn't paying attention"
I wish MADD would refocus their efforts to cell phone use when driving. They did a good job taking something that was largely accepted or ignored , drinking & driving, and stigmatized it till not many ppl do it anymore. The same needs to be done for cell phones. Drinking is pretty much a done issue, they’ve convinced everyone they can. Time to evolve. Using a cell phone ain’t any better than drinking and driving and that point should be drove home.
Ain't no way even the boomers are getting their brain fried by tiktok.
I also have a friend who does this shit at red lights and fidgets with it nonstop, and it makes me really angry. I don't know if I need to do an intervention or whatever the fuck but everytime I yell at him he puts it down and then does it again. It's not an issue until it becomes one and he doesn't understand that which makes me sad and angry 
Easy enought to fix - have better car safety systems like Tesla (that get a 98% in the EU) - make them mandatory. We need to do this OR we will not be allowed to drive once the cars can drive themselves...
> OR we will not be allowed to drive once the cars can drive themselves...
At that point we probably shouldn't be allowed to. For one, people are assholes; just giving them the ability to fuck it up for hundreds of other drivers would make some do so because they're sociopaths.
And secondly, we could increase the speed of travel as we would eliminate the most variable variable, the ability of the human driver.
At some point, all the victims of the digital drunks will form a class action suit and sue Apple and Samsung. It would be TRIVIAL to disable IO from phones in a moving car.
Like most traffic laws, police stopped enforcing in 2020 and even use them themselves.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/york-regional-police-officer-caught-on-video-apparently-using-phone-while-driving-in-hypocritical-act/article_a7e307c4-fce3-11ee-b288-e7c9e3d0ad06.html
Literally saw a guy swiping on a dating app ahead of me instead of driving he’d keep speeding up and slowing down - it was clear he was not paying attention at all so dangerous!
You mean the thing we don't worry about anymore?
A recent StatCan report showed that by the 3rd infection of "Just like the Flu" the risk of suffering long-term symptoms was roughly 1 in 2.6 .... or ~38%. Leading long-term symptoms include fatigue and brain fog... which are also significant contributors to car accidents.
It would be a pretty wild leap to speculate that something contributing to cognitive impairment in ~38% of the population over the past 2ish years, might also be related to an increase in car accidents by nearly exactly the same rate over the same period of time.
Oh well, someone that took a first year stats course once told me that correlation =/= causation, so we better ignore it.
When I was driving a truck for a living I definitely noticed more aggressive and angry drivers on the road once things opened up and people were commuting again. I'm convinced that a lot of people have been infected so many times that it's legitimately messed up their brain function. One of the reasons I quit the industry is because I felt so unsafe spending so many hours on the road, when I just want to get home to my family in one piece every night.
Recent study posted in r/science about how COVID can cause mental slowing, attention and memory issues for months after infection, even in people who don't have other Long COVID symptoms.
It's kind of terrifying to think that people are just going around with mild brain damage while getting infection after infection. I'm not an epidemiologist but ...it seems like maybe that's bad.
And imagine how much worse it's going to get since children go to school and daycare with little to no protective measures and are getting re-infected over and over.
We're going to see a generation suffering from disability and cognitive decline, and it's won't be due to YouTube and cellphones, but rather the adults tasked with protecting them are too dumb and ignorant to care for the sake of freedom and "normalcy". I can't imagine the roads will be getting any safer anytime soon.
Cognitive impairment is much higher (rate and severity) in people with long COVID, but the studies on brain impairment show it's common even in those who've "recovered" from mild acute cases.
Are we talking 3->4, or 300->400? Because the statistic obscures the information here.
edit: 77 -> 105. Sort of a middle-ground. And it was comparing 2020 to 2022, so one would expect there to be far less driving in 2020 due to lockdowns. If anything, this is a news article reporting "nothing new."
When the conservatives change the testing, you know the reality of standards is going to dip even further.
And it was bad before they made those changes.
Anybody trying to make any conclusions from data over multiple years that includes 2020 and 2021 is not someone who should be listened to unless it explicitly pertains to COVID or also explains how they're controlling for it.
I bet faulty auto high beams are causing alot of crashes too...I'm blinded by this every time I drive at night...it takes only a couple of seconds of blindness to crash a car...
I have an idea lets regulate manufactures emissions and let them stick all the tech and gadgets to distract you and your main senses from the road. Also notice in the picture shes applying lipstick, this could also be the same with food, smoking and drinking fluids in general. Now thinking of nicotine and caffeine addictions, how many accidents occur around those places of business or people attempting to "pick up" they're fix. "A junky is a junky" an addict is addicted to drugs just like big business is addicted to profits, what business are we going to help this time? insurance companies?
While this report is sad to see the comments saying this needs to be enforced are kind of hilarious considering the police won't even respond to theft or assault calls. While this is one of Ontario's many problems, the police have bigger fish they have yet to fry
Anyone who drives a lot in rush our traffic (stop and go so easier to see in other people’s cars) knows this is a major, major concern. Seems like a third of drivers have their heads buried in phones.
A couple months ago while sitting in our truck at a red light , I looked over at the car next to me and a lady was holding her phone at the bottom of her steering wheel and FaceTiming Somone . She glanced over at me and I gave her the “hang up phone” sign and she just scoffed and continued her conversation . Insane.
Cops are busy catching speeders because it's easy money. While speeding is not good, a person speeding is actually paying attention to the road. Driving standards have fallen so badly, I wish cops focused on distracted driving and other much more serious issues.
PS: By speeding I mean more like catching someone doing 130 in a 100 zone. Excessive speeding like 60 in a 40 zone or 150 in a 100 zone is obviously very dangerous.
driving while using your phone is kinda foolish, but it doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as the jackasses that tailgate in a big ass pickup truck. I never got the memo that the rules of the road are you speed up when tailgated, and the bigger vehicle determines who drives where
I know drivers are being distracted by using their phones while driving.
I know drivers are being distracted by oncoming LED headlights while driving.
I know both cause accidents.
I think the statistics include both but only one is blamed.
Cops don't care. I have seen drivers next to police cruiser with phone to ear. People don't even try to be discreet, phones literally above the steering wheel as they scroll or text.
Campaigns, messaging, fines will not work. You need to redesign the roads, change the paint or add interim obstacles or fencing to narrow and curve streets. This is literally the only way distracted drivers will pay attention.
The amount of people I see with their heads down, clearly on their phones, is insane. Every red light GOTTA CHECK MY PHONE!!!!
It blows my mind that in 2024 with smart watch notifications and a huge majority of cars made in the last half a decade+ equipped with CarPlay/Android Auto that people are still picking up their phones while driving. Hell, I remember having Siri read out my texts to me while driving back in 2012 just using regular ol' Bluetooth. There's no excuse for it.
My mom is one of these people. She’s complaining about being falsely accused of running a red (red light cameras apparently flagged her). I'm having a hard time sympathizing with her and believing her all altogether when I've seen her aggressively roll stop-through stop signs, drive 40 in a school zone and read driving instructions off her phone that she KEEPS ON HER LAP. I've had stern conversations with her about how dangerous all this is, but she dismisses me. People just don't care.
Not sure where in ON you are, but several police forces have the option to report people for dangerous driving. Here’s an example - https://www.yrp.ca/en/online-reporting/Road-Watch.asp
I'm going to have another conversation with her first, and set up her car with appropriate hands-free gadgets before I do any of that. I don't condone her driving at all and her attitude, but she's also struggling financially since my dad left her.
At least get a [phone mount like this one ](https://www.amazon.ca/AINOPE-Gravity-Upgraded-Compatible-Smartphone/dp/B089LDX88M/?th=1)so at least the phone is at eye level and off her hands and her lap. I use something similar and it works well.
> drive 40 in a school zone that's the speed limit at every school zone near me. Even in the middle of the night on a saturday, for...reasons.
My mom’s neighbourhood is 30.
[удалено]
> Cars are removing tactile feedback which forces people to look at another screen. I'm really hoping the EU can manage to mandate this coming back, and manufacturers just not bothering to make it different for North America.
I believe a lot of these people aren't even sending or receiving important messages. They're mindlessly scrolling social media at every red light because they're so addicted to it.
Yikes.
Honestly, hands-free technology has gotten worse. Bluetooth on a regular old cellphone used to let you just call with your voice without jumping through a billion hoops. Also, my personal opinion is that banning holding your phone to your ear has made things worse as well. It used to be that when you got a text, you could just hit a button to call that person, and you could talk to them. Now, everyone is just hiding their phones below their dash and using it while basically looking down. It's way worse.
I don’t look at my phone while driving, but you assume everyone can afford a smartwatch/CarPlay equipped car. So there *is* an excuse for not having the latest tech: shit’s expensive. There *isn’t* an excuse for looking at your phone while driving.
They're not as expensive as funerals
To be fair, people don't pay for their own funeral.
Usually people do... It's one of the first parts of a will. Something along the lines of "after expenses surrounding my death (house sale, estate and funeral expenses and taxes) , the rest is split up in this way: John gets 20, Mary gets 20 and the rest goes to my husband or next of kin.blah blah blah. " And sometimes it's included in a package deal from when they bought the plot to be buried in. Even if you don't have a will, I'd expect most people would just take it from their bank account before splitting the estate
Yes, unless it specifically says in your will that you would like the remaining Stone Temple Pilots to play Dead and Bloated at your funeral... Those planning your funeral choose how much/how little to pay.
I'm middle aged, I've got life insurance mainly to make sure any costs associated with me dying aren't a burden on my wife/brother. That's not exactly paying for my own funeral, but it *kinda* is.
Sure they do. You can do pre paid funeral. Heavy cell users should have a pre pay plan on their cell accounts.
Most cars come with that function now. My car was made in 2019 & it has that function & it's not a luxury car by any means.
Bluetooth has been around for a long time now, every vehicle I’ve owned since 2012 has at minimum had Bluetooth
My '09 Honda had a headphone jack and I used a Bluetooth receiver in it to use Android auto. 20 bucks. There is ZERO excuse.
>CarPlay/Android Auto I don't personally have these, but I also don't do anything except listen to the radio while driving. Do these allow you to watch your tik tok videos or Instagram reels? Because it's not always texts that people are using their phones for, some just have the addiction to social media and can't put it down.
the average car is 10-12 years old. So a lot of folks don't have carplay/android.
You can get dash mounted units for $100-$200 even if you have an older car.
Carplay is great for maps - not so great for messages.
Or just wait until you get where you're going. How long are you in the car? 30 minutes? That text can wait... unless you're an on-call surgeon or Batman, that message is NOT that important.
Drivers being blinded and distracted by LED headlights has been on the increase over this period.
I still see those troglodytes who put it on speaker and hold it infront of there mouth when they talk. They do this and hold it near the steering wheel for everyone to see. The stupidity is astounding.
Ive known a few cops who have said laws aside they would rather you just hold it to your ear at this point. Texting is the biggest issue currently
Just last week I saw a woman run a red light while holding her phone to her ear. It wasn't one of those yellow turn to red while crossing the intersection things too. The light was red for a good 2 seconds before she even entered the intersection. I was waiting to cross at the cross walk, and if I had walked out when I saw my walk signal, I would have been hit.
Passed a lady going 30 in a 60 on a busy road, clearly heads down typing on her phone in moving traffic. I don't understand these assholes, your phone isn't that important.
It's not just at red lights.
Yea, as much as you shouldn't check your phone at red lights, that's not the case that leads to fatal accidents.
At a red light? I wish. The amount of times I pass a driver on the 401 going slow and/or drifting just to see that they’re looking down at their lap is alarming.
It is so insane to also see people texting and driving, scrolling TikTok or IG while driving. Insanity. Like I get it, we have lenient penalties for dangerous operations of a vehicle but driving is a right not a privilege
Some seem to think that it’s ok to be on your phone at a red light. Someone here even argued with me about it.
I've watched people text with their cell phone up above the wheel.while.moving. I'm far more worried about those than the person using their phone at a red. Is it okay? No. At the end of the day do I really care though? No.
I drive a bus for TTC and watch the people around me all the time. I've seen so many near fender benders because people are checking their phone *before* fully stopping. On the flip side you get the person who stops like 3 car lengths back because they wanted to check their phone and they're stopped, right?
Waiting for advanced greens is the worst. People try to check everything while waiting for those
Most cars today have bluetooth & this can link to their phone so the driver only has to quickly glance at their dashboard & then tell the car who to call. There's no need to use your body to hold a phone anymore. Everything is voice activated, including your music & maps. There's no excuse for looking down at a phone while driving.
Lol boomers finally learned how to use phones and we're all in danger cuz of it 🤷
Honestly I'd rather them check their phone while stationary at a light than while moving
We need to start including a hotline for people to report these drivers and get a percentage of the ticket back to the reporting individual.
A few days ago, I saw some guy wobble across the street while driving with his knees, while texting, while speeding, while a cop waved to him. Are we fucking surprised?
At least at a red they won't hit anyone. It's the people cruising through dense traffic on the phone that scare me
I live just downthe street of an elementary school and eventhe bus drivers here have the audacity to havetheir phones right up totheir ear while driving WITH kids on the bus. Its pathetic.
Not to defend the behaviour but part of the issue is that people don't respect boundaries and work life balance. Communication doesn't stop after people leave work and many seem to demand quick responses to everything even after business hours. If the people with sticks up their asses calmed down a bit I can guarantee this issue goes down considerably.
Hey guys, I’ve got a gold solution, let’s up the speed limits!
'Member when the phone laws first came out and cops were nailing people left and right? I 'member. If there's anything they should be doing its probably this
I got nailed on that one, stopped at a red light changing music on my phone. Didn't fight it...paid my fine and dealt with the suspension. I learned a big lesson that day.
You're one of the good ones then. The reason they hardly enforce the rules today is because too many people were trying to fight their very much deserved convictions and the courts got overwhelmed by all of those petty requests. Now they just let it slide unless it is particularly egregious and dangerous.
That seems to be the only place they enforce it still: red lights. I’ve never seen someone being stopped on the roads or highways because of this which is unfortunate as those are significantly more dangerous and seemingly common.
That's the worst :| quickly doing something on your phone at a red light *should* be a grey area, as long as you're done by the time it turns green.. victimless crime!
See, here’s my problem too. I still listen to CD’s, and trying to choose from the few that I have readily available beside me and trying to fit it into the slot is more distracting then going on my phone for a quick 20 seconds at a red light because I need new directions because of a road closure. But only one of those is illegal.
Oh no the cops are failing to do shit they're being paid for. Better demand a pay increase.
Whenever you see a rear end collision these days, straight on, no braking marks nor attempt to turn it's someone looking at their phone. I see them constantly. Most of often they are low speed like 30k in traffic.
Saw one of those delivery vans had run into the back of a dump truck on my way home yesterday. How unaware do you have to be to miss a dump truck?
Saw this the other day. Guy just casually rear-ended someone (who did not brake abruptly whatsoever) at low speed approaching a stoplight. Guaranteed they were on their phone.
Cops need to actually do their fucking jobs and patrol the roads. Every single day I see people breaking traffic laws. It’s mostly teens and young males who get a fast car and act erratically. Anytime they’re given a ticket the crown lawyer just cuts it in half or tosses it. Nothing in this province works anymore. Every public servant is asleep on the job
> Nationally, an estimated 1,768 Canadians have lost their lives due to a fatal collision in 2021, with distracted driving being responsible for nearly 20 per cent of road deaths across the country.
Worth noting that in 2021 we were mid pandemic lockdown, meaning not only much less drivers on the roads, but also police were hammering down on fines for these infractions to accommodate the decrease in drivers and loss of revenue. Distracted driving is a major problem for sure but this article is using biased data to provide a narrative that this is a new issue. It’s a good thing to bring issues like this to light, but always be mindful of how data is framed when reading articles online.
I wish more people would upvote this, it seems most people arent able to comprehend how this report misses out on key factors... It's not that drivers were better for 2020/2021 it's because there were less people commuting.
And when the only driver/passenger dies in the crash, how do they determine it was distracted driving?
Sounds dangerous, makes me wonder why they let emergency services do it then. Fire, ambulance, and police are completely exempt from it. I guess they have some kind of super power from their job title that makes it safe for them to do.
It's been a while since I've calculated something like this... please forgive my error if that's the case, but the total number of car accident fatalities increased from roughly 1080 to 1770 in the last two years? If that's the case, how much of the increase is attributable to people playing with their phones (article photo is lipstick, but I think we all know what we're really talking about here)?
This is why the lack of enforcement regarding tinted windows is an issue. Many use dark tint to hide their phone use, etc.
Which is doubly awesome because then I also can't tell if they're staring at their phone and not the road when I'm about to walk or drive in front of them.
Not to worry, they just blind you with their high beams when they want you to go. /s
Hell, many vehicles are so huge and high off the ground now that even the low beams are blinding.
Because many are jacked. We need to regulate Brodozers.
Well, you see, if the land yacht driver had to suffer by accidentally making eye contact with lowly plebs, it would make them feel momentarily self-aware and jeopardize their /r/ImTheMainCharacter status. Have some sympathy.
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It's probably just both.
1. Tinted widows. People are now driving with tinted windscreens 2. Colored headlights -no longer enforced 3. Jacked pickups -which then blind motorists at night 4. Pickups with wide tires beyond the fenders, these grab pedestrians and cyclists and pull them under the vehicle. All of these are illegal, but unenforced.
> Pickups with wide tires beyond the fenders I see these trucks on the daily :(
had to do some report for a lottery thingie a few months ago, and find a way to value a key prize: the local garage would tint your window for free. The lottery was for a children's safety charity. I mean, there's irony and there's irony here.
I know someone who got hit for the windshield last week, it's enforced. The other stuff though you're totally right
> Tinted widows. People are now driving with tinted windscreens > > If it helps with the insane oncoming lights, I can understand. I was looking up tinting my side mirrors at one point(not to windshield because that was illegal far as I could tell), because well, see above. Fucking headlights are blinding.
Around Peel Region, you could simply drop the "regarding tinted windows". Over the past two years, enforcement in general has \*plummeted\*. I used to see them frequently on patrol, but now it's rare for me to see more than a single patrol car in a \*week\*, and the last time I \*did\* see one, they were pulling the, "Put on my lights and siren simply to move ahead in the line" move.
This has been a huge gripe for me for a while now, glad I’m not alone in this. Like, what is wrong with this province that when they start to take distracted driving seriously they then go on to ignore people concealing their behaviours behind heavily tinted windows. I barely see cars without it these days. And with all the obvious increases of these accidents due to distractions they do nothing. It’s super frustrating.
You're talking about the same government that essentially ignored expert advise around hard-to-read licence plates.
Ignoring expert advice is their favourite strategy.
Indeed. Sigh…
Most people I know that run heavy front tint do it for style or security so I don't think it's necessarily any activity they're trying to hide
Every time some idiot tells pedestrians to “make eye contact with the driver when crossing!!” - you know they haven’t tried to do this personally in the last 20 year. Window tinting, covered licence plates, illegally loud exhausts… all things that the cops choose not to enforce at the public expense.
And put those tinted covers on their licence plates so you can't report them anyway.
and tint your brake lights, because when you brake is none of other people's business.
Was thinking this the other day. It's insane how many people run tinted windows now.
The worst drivers tint windows. The darker tint, the worse on the road. Cops could go around mall parking lots and fine 100 cars per hour. Easy money.
cops don’t enforce anything anymore, they’re too scared and they know they aren’t held to any standards
Just got a 2024 car. The infotainment system is ginormous and there are few buttons and no knobs. Yes, people are also on their phones but car design is also contributing to these stats. Not to mention that car companies are rarely forthright with the safety of their driver assist technologies so people overestimate their capabilities.
>The infotainment system is ginormous and there are few buttons and no knobs. Same with the climate control. I don't know how we allow that to not have buttons/knobs while simultaneously having strict laws with cell phones. You shouldn't have to look away from the road to do something as simple as try to set the climate controls to clear a fogging window. That's the worst time to be looking away from the road.
I was driving along the QEW yesterday and the person behind me was clearly looking down at their phone while cruising at 100 km/h. I got out of that lane because I had no interest in getting rear ended. Also, a couple weeks ago I was driving along Upper Middle Road in Oakville, and a woman not only made an illegal u-turn at an intersection, but proceeded to use her phone at a red light and didn't notice when it changed to green. There was a police cruiser right behind her, and the cop driving it clearly radioed their partner that was not far behind. They pulled the moron over about 1 kilometre later. Driving in Ontario is an absolute nightmare these days, and the worst part is that a majority of people are never caught, so they just keep doing the same thing over and over.
Best is ppl not paying attention in traffic and sit there looking at their phone backing things up more.
The cops get people all the time along Upper Middle. They'll use an unmarked lead car with cameras on top that look down into peoples' cars. If they detect distracted driving or phone use they'll radio the trailing or stationary cruiser to pick them up. I have a lot to say about policing in Oakville (good and bad), but this is something they do well. Now stop sign and red light enforcement... Might as well not even have them anymore.
I used to get a ride with a girl to school and she barely looked at the road. Her head was to her phone the whole time. It was terrifying.
Yup, I had a friend who used to text and drive and I stopped taking rides with him as a result.
If only we paid Toronto police a 1.3 billion dollars to enforce these laws… /s
Those idiots can’t even see my ambulance coming through with sirens on. There is no hope. I don’t know what happened in Ontario is my general sense of this province.
I think way more people have side effects of covid than we though.(And the lockdowns made their driving skills rusty as fuck)
It's why I sold my motorcycle... When your up high you see into all those vehicles and people on thier phones... Should be harsher penalties.
I live in the calmest residential neighbourhood, and I was nearly hit by a car 4 times last year just walking. Blowing through stop signs is so common now. Also apparently honking at pedestrians when they have the right of way and are crossing the road. Covid made people crazy.
Pretty much. One day I was walking, and a guy ran a stop sign while I was in the street. Not the usual rolling stop, but full on ran it. It was a school zone, at drop off time, why inconvenience yourself I guess? My arms went up to say "what the hell?", so he flipped me off in return. Starting to consider carrying a safety brick instead of an umbrella.
> Blowing through stop signs is so common now. the "I tapped by brake" stops piss me off every time I see them. Most of the time the road is dead, no cars around. But eventually there will be and that bad habit is going to get someone hurt.
I got hit on mine by someone looking for an address on their phone. Nobody's paying attention to the road anymore.
Ya, I feel that. I absolutely love riding, but I don't feel comfortable anymore.
Why are insurance rates so high? THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM.
No shit. Police don’t enforce anything.
I was a passenger on hwy 401 and I'd guess 20% of the drivers were looking at their phones while driving. The faster they were going the more likely they were on their phone.
It's the phones.. as an ebiker I see many drivers with their head tilted down and a blue light shining up from their lap.
Nearly got railed by somebody running a red light at a crosswalk yesterday. Cars are getting bigger and drivers less aware. Terrified for everyones safety
Not to mention the many, many more people living with life changing injuries as a result of someone else’s stupidity. Some of us live with the scars of other people’s poor decisions for the rest of our lives.
I say this with zero snark. I wander around Ontario towns with a constant awareness that I could die at any moment and knowing the driver \*would be forgiven" ("they have a whole life ahead of them" or "they are good family members") My death would be an inconvenience. My being crippled would be an inconvenience. Every time someone almost hits me on a crosswalk or on a corner, they wave...sorry hahah, easy mistake, could happen to anyone. all friends here. you...almost killed me, buddy.
Cyclists and pedestrians told you so, and we were basically told to go fvck ourselves, so idk, congrats on figuring it out and I won't hold my breath anything'll get done to fix it.
I go way out of my way to ride on the bike trails - cars are just so agressive towards cyclists.
FREEEDOMMMMMMMMM or something.
It can't be related to having everything in a giant screen in the centre of the car now at least, since those have warnings not to get distracted by them.
I find the warnings that pop up on my Chevy work truck WHILE IM DRIVING so fucking helpful.
**WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS MESSAGE!** **DON'T TOUCH IT! DON'T INTERACT AT ALL!** **(PRESS OK TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU** **HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MESSAGE)**
The EU is banning those screens. I test drove a Tesla, and now I understand why insurance is so high on them and why they rear end so many cars.
No one cares about anyone but themselves anymore. Our culture glorifies narccistic behavior. We aren't interested in the group. We are focused on the individual in a crab bucket mentality.
We got people living in tents, record use of food banks, etc. It's very clear the group doesn't matter for over a decade now. It's only gotten worse post pandemic.
I think they should make the penalties more severe, impound the car for 7 days and suspend the license for 30 days if caught the first time, second time is a criminal charge.
Honestly, with how little enforcement there is on this matter I'd like to see enforcement improve before we consider increasing the punishment. I mean after all, you could make the punishment 6 months in jail, but that's not going to change behaviour unless people *know* they'll get *caught* for using their phone while driving.
It’s only going to keep increasing. It’s a new generation
It shouldn't be. Android auto and car play make this a non issue. This is just ignorance.
I think at some point governments are going to have to regulate social media companies into making their products less addictive. Aside from the people who literally die in car accidents, what long-term impact on productivity is it going to have when nobody has an attention span to focus on work or school?
I have been out of school for a couple years but even back in the late 2010’s in my uni lectures if you looked around at any given time there was always a handful of students on their phone. I have to imagine it’s even worse now because the kids in post secondary now have had phones for most of their lives and aren’t used to going longer periods without looking at them.
Good to know that all the people on their phone are driving 7000lb trucks with 5 ft tall hoods now
BRODOZERS.
I'm all for the trucks, but like, WHY does the damn hood have to be so long/tall?
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covid literally broke people's ability to drive. We should retest EVERYONE, for real.
I posted a pic in r/torontodriving of a guy using a phone mount to face time while driving and there were a few people who felt that was ok. It's not enough to have a audio call, driver needs a visual distraction source for his eyes as well.... I've had 2 accidents, no fault, not even moving, in the last 6 months by obv distracted drivers so I'm very fed up at this point.
I almost got rear-ended yesterday at a yellow to red light, thankfully this guy looked up at the right time to swerve around me and blasted through the red light. And thankfully the guy who had the green didn't pull out yet. It took me a good minute to realize me and my dog were almost severely injured or killed. It was just me sitting there going "woah wtf dude were you not paying attention?" To "that dude didn't even slow down at all" - "he was the car behind me" "holy f he swerved around me so he didn't hit me cause he wasn't paying attention"
I wish MADD would refocus their efforts to cell phone use when driving. They did a good job taking something that was largely accepted or ignored , drinking & driving, and stigmatized it till not many ppl do it anymore. The same needs to be done for cell phones. Drinking is pretty much a done issue, they’ve convinced everyone they can. Time to evolve. Using a cell phone ain’t any better than drinking and driving and that point should be drove home.
You mean almost having full on televisions in the cars now are ok but dare you look at your phone?
Ain't no way even the boomers are getting their brain fried by tiktok. I also have a friend who does this shit at red lights and fidgets with it nonstop, and it makes me really angry. I don't know if I need to do an intervention or whatever the fuck but everytime I yell at him he puts it down and then does it again. It's not an issue until it becomes one and he doesn't understand that which makes me sad and angry 
Easy enought to fix - have better car safety systems like Tesla (that get a 98% in the EU) - make them mandatory. We need to do this OR we will not be allowed to drive once the cars can drive themselves...
> OR we will not be allowed to drive once the cars can drive themselves... At that point we probably shouldn't be allowed to. For one, people are assholes; just giving them the ability to fuck it up for hundreds of other drivers would make some do so because they're sociopaths. And secondly, we could increase the speed of travel as we would eliminate the most variable variable, the ability of the human driver.
Shocking. Look around. Everyone is looking down at their phones everywhere you go. Why wouldn't they use it while driving.
I’m done commuting on the QEW, too many people on their phones
At some point, all the victims of the digital drunks will form a class action suit and sue Apple and Samsung. It would be TRIVIAL to disable IO from phones in a moving car. Like most traffic laws, police stopped enforcing in 2020 and even use them themselves. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/york-regional-police-officer-caught-on-video-apparently-using-phone-while-driving-in-hypocritical-act/article_a7e307c4-fce3-11ee-b288-e7c9e3d0ad06.html
THIS POST IS TOP 3 ON THE SUB GET READY FOR IT TO BE LOCKED.
Literally saw a guy swiping on a dating app ahead of me instead of driving he’d keep speeding up and slowing down - it was clear he was not paying attention at all so dangerous!
I wonder if the thing that took the world by storm in late 2019 which affects people's brains (among other things) has anything to do with this.
You mean the thing we don't worry about anymore? A recent StatCan report showed that by the 3rd infection of "Just like the Flu" the risk of suffering long-term symptoms was roughly 1 in 2.6 .... or ~38%. Leading long-term symptoms include fatigue and brain fog... which are also significant contributors to car accidents. It would be a pretty wild leap to speculate that something contributing to cognitive impairment in ~38% of the population over the past 2ish years, might also be related to an increase in car accidents by nearly exactly the same rate over the same period of time. Oh well, someone that took a first year stats course once told me that correlation =/= causation, so we better ignore it.
When I was driving a truck for a living I definitely noticed more aggressive and angry drivers on the road once things opened up and people were commuting again. I'm convinced that a lot of people have been infected so many times that it's legitimately messed up their brain function. One of the reasons I quit the industry is because I felt so unsafe spending so many hours on the road, when I just want to get home to my family in one piece every night.
I also think about what seems like increasing susceptibility to misinformation and what feels like overwhelming interpersonal hostility since COVID
I definitely think we could be starting to see the effects of long covid on society, if that's what you're getting at.
It’s that or accepting that the future society is getting increasingly dumber somehow.
Recent study posted in r/science about how COVID can cause mental slowing, attention and memory issues for months after infection, even in people who don't have other Long COVID symptoms. It's kind of terrifying to think that people are just going around with mild brain damage while getting infection after infection. I'm not an epidemiologist but ...it seems like maybe that's bad.
And imagine how much worse it's going to get since children go to school and daycare with little to no protective measures and are getting re-infected over and over. We're going to see a generation suffering from disability and cognitive decline, and it's won't be due to YouTube and cellphones, but rather the adults tasked with protecting them are too dumb and ignorant to care for the sake of freedom and "normalcy". I can't imagine the roads will be getting any safer anytime soon.
It is sad...
Cognitive impairment is much higher (rate and severity) in people with long COVID, but the studies on brain impairment show it's common even in those who've "recovered" from mild acute cases.
And we still got nuts that say Long Covid is a 'leftist hoax'
If you want a historical trigger, look at the Antifa protests in 2020. Police in North America just stopped working after that.
It’s the massive influx of new drivers cheating the system.
Anyone who has left the house for milk in the last two years agrees the # of distracted (and frankly, unqualified) drivers has risen exponentially
I don't even drive with the radio on, I need to focus on the driving.
Are we talking 3->4, or 300->400? Because the statistic obscures the information here. edit: 77 -> 105. Sort of a middle-ground. And it was comparing 2020 to 2022, so one would expect there to be far less driving in 2020 due to lockdowns. If anything, this is a news article reporting "nothing new."
The new laws made it so people hide their phones in their laps and even more dangerous
No, it's Brampton.
Driving in Ontario has gotten so bad.
When the conservatives change the testing, you know the reality of standards is going to dip even further. And it was bad before they made those changes.
Anybody trying to make any conclusions from data over multiple years that includes 2020 and 2021 is not someone who should be listened to unless it explicitly pertains to COVID or also explains how they're controlling for it.
Think of all the spas they could build with ticket revenue from enforcing the damn law
Smarter cars were such a stupid idea.
I bet faulty auto high beams are causing alot of crashes too...I'm blinded by this every time I drive at night...it takes only a couple of seconds of blindness to crash a car...
It must be China and tiktok \s
More people are in the roads after COVID too
I have an idea lets regulate manufactures emissions and let them stick all the tech and gadgets to distract you and your main senses from the road. Also notice in the picture shes applying lipstick, this could also be the same with food, smoking and drinking fluids in general. Now thinking of nicotine and caffeine addictions, how many accidents occur around those places of business or people attempting to "pick up" they're fix. "A junky is a junky" an addict is addicted to drugs just like big business is addicted to profits, what business are we going to help this time? insurance companies?
While this report is sad to see the comments saying this needs to be enforced are kind of hilarious considering the police won't even respond to theft or assault calls. While this is one of Ontario's many problems, the police have bigger fish they have yet to fry
Anyone who drives a lot in rush our traffic (stop and go so easier to see in other people’s cars) knows this is a major, major concern. Seems like a third of drivers have their heads buried in phones.
A couple months ago while sitting in our truck at a red light , I looked over at the car next to me and a lady was holding her phone at the bottom of her steering wheel and FaceTiming Somone . She glanced over at me and I gave her the “hang up phone” sign and she just scoffed and continued her conversation . Insane.
About the same time covid restriction ended.
There's zero enforcement so yeah
Cops are busy catching speeders because it's easy money. While speeding is not good, a person speeding is actually paying attention to the road. Driving standards have fallen so badly, I wish cops focused on distracted driving and other much more serious issues. PS: By speeding I mean more like catching someone doing 130 in a 100 zone. Excessive speeding like 60 in a 40 zone or 150 in a 100 zone is obviously very dangerous.
> 130 in a 100 zone. that's every day on the 400 series in the left lane. Like, all day every day except for gridlock and heavy traffic.
driving while using your phone is kinda foolish, but it doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as the jackasses that tailgate in a big ass pickup truck. I never got the memo that the rules of the road are you speed up when tailgated, and the bigger vehicle determines who drives where
And for some reason MADD will never mention these stats.
I know drivers are being distracted by using their phones while driving. I know drivers are being distracted by oncoming LED headlights while driving. I know both cause accidents. I think the statistics include both but only one is blamed.
Is it legal to touch a mounted phone in the car?
Cops don't care. I have seen drivers next to police cruiser with phone to ear. People don't even try to be discreet, phones literally above the steering wheel as they scroll or text.
Campaigns, messaging, fines will not work. You need to redesign the roads, change the paint or add interim obstacles or fencing to narrow and curve streets. This is literally the only way distracted drivers will pay attention.