this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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That's the law here. Phone has to be securely stowed. Driving with it on your lap gets you a distracted driving ticket. Even if you weren't planning on looking at it. A sudden traffic move means its falling on the floor and driver is going to try to reach for it.
My uncle once wrapped his car around a telephone pole because an orange fell off the seat and he was trying to pick it up.
I feel like there’s a clever fruit/apple/iphone joke in there somewhere but I can’t find it and I give up.
A coworker hit a parked car that way. Turning a RH corner he hooked his arm through the steering wheel to get to the passenger side, then popped up to see himself rear ending a car
Yup. I'm not surprised at Americans being opposed to it, but here in Australia we have cameras that detect phone usage while driving. The fine itself is issued after a person verifies the photo. And I am fully supportive of it. Driving a motor vehicle is an insanely fucking dangerous task. If your full attention isn't on it, you deserve to receive a fine. Keep the phone stowed securely in a holder, or away in your pocket.
The freedom of me to be able to make my trip on foot or bike—or even in my own car—without being killed by you far outweighs any idea of freedom you might have to be able to have your phone on your lap.
Australians and Canadians have some pretty bad entitlement when it comes to driving. But neither of us are anywhere near as entitled as Americans. Discussions like the one in this thread make that very clear. !fuckcars@lemmy.world
The case in the headline was actually in Queensland, but gadgetreview.com seems to be a terrible site that doesn't give a shit what it's even reporting on.
I am not a fan of the all-seeing panopticon, personally. That said, I personally feel much more entitled to good public transit and walkable neighborhoods than to a car.
I have heard bad things about how Flock works in particular with respect to tracking people, abuse of police powers, etc. But it was not involved in the event in this article, and it is not the only way of doing mobile phone detection.
My state uses a company called Acusensus, which only captures images for long enough to run the AI over them and then deletes all those without even being seen by a human if no offence is detected, among other privacy safeguards. The humans who do review the ones that AI detects as an offence don't even get to see where or when the alleged offence took place.
Americans don't love freedom, they love being special. If we apply the law evenly, we can't selectively apply it againsts Blacks, Minorities and Poors. The law is there to keep me comfortable and them in line. If we start applying the laws like I'm not special, it'll just be anarchy.
Why do you think SovCit nonsense got so big there? Gotta be special, I learned the secret Naval codes that unlock free travel.
Yeah, we love our own freedom, not freedom for other people.
Especially nowadays, there's no reason to have your phone out. Bluetooth connection to infotainment system. Blue tooth add on to old soundsystem. Retro fit systems, or a single one touch ear bud etc.
They're also against all their movements being recorded, ID requirements for websites, etc. Crazy people, who would ever want to not be tracked every second of their waking lives?
Sure, and I'll agree with them on those points.
But Americans tend to be the most likely to take things a step too far. Opposing speeding cameras, red light cameras, and phone use cameras is not the same as those things. These are all dangerous but normalised behaviours that should be cracked down on for genuine public safety.
If we have to have cameras on every corner for "public safety" we've gone wrong somewhere our set up of society. Do I think people should be on their phone while driving? No -- I don't even think people should be talking or listening to music while driving. The question is where do we draw the line? Do I get to decide where the line is drawn? Do you get to? Let's not pretend things were decided democratically or for the public good when they obviously weren't -- because there are no democracies (yet) and cops wouldn't need to lobby or propagandize so hard if it were actually for the public good. The world is setting up surveillance states and eventually those states will make laws that go too far. It's a lot more sensible to leave people alone until they interfere with someone else.
Fees and surveillance like this isn't even a preventative measure. If you actually want to prevent harm, use public information campaigns. Or decrease the need for cars in the first place with public transport...
And road diets, and modal filters, and bike infrastructure that is wide, separated, given priority at intersections, and ubiquitous. All great ideas I fully support. But even given immense political will those will take decades to fully deliver.
Meanwhile in a country a 10th the population of America 100s of people die every year because of drivers on phones. For a measure to be effective as a preventative, people need to believe there's a high chance they will actually get caught. That's the most effective predictor. These should not be secretly installed, but accompanied with a public campaign making it clear that they are being installed and that being caught is very likely.
And people who are caught, more than just a fine, need to face a real chance of losing their licence. Not to be punitive, but because that is what they have demonstrated is necessary for genuine public safety because they are dangerous if they're allowed to drive.
Well, I don't think you have to threaten people to make them behave. I think most people are decent and responsible, and can be convinced if they understand the dangers. I'm not convinced threatening the ones who couldn't be convinced will actually be helpful. I am fairly hostile to anyone threatening me even to agreeable ends. Regardless of whether I'm right about all that, it kinda misses the point: the means are unacceptable. These systems will creep and overstep while empowering stalkers and tyrants at multiple level of government. They will antagonize both people who've done nothing wrong and those who have but would prefer to quietly reform.
It doesn't really matter how just your ends are when your means enable horrific outcomes.
I'm not American myself, but phone use cameras can't work without being constantly on. Speeding cameras flash when speeding is detected, red light cameras too. Phone detection requires AI so it's gonna be a constant video stream. Everyone's going to be recorded 24/7 and it doesn't matter if you're driving, cycling or walking. Who says how long the data is being kept and where it's going?
I tend to think that having speeding cameras in crucial spots is necessary (in some places they straight up exist to collect funds though) and a busy or dangerous intersection absolutely merits a red light camera... But I don't want phone detection cameras purely because of how invasive it is.
The government says. They're the ones operating the cameras. Absolutely, they should not be used for any other purpose than their stated one. No video saved, only still frames kept long enough for the AI to make a determination, and kept longer if that determination is that there was a phone detected, so the photo can be used as evidence.
But in that situation, where the government is operating it in accordance with security and privacy best practice, the safety benefits far outweigh any theoretical downsides. This is not some theoretical. Over 1000 people die every year in Australia on our roads. Approximately 16% of serious car crashes are linked to mobile phone use.
We need to stop treating driving like a sacred right, and start treating it like what it is: an incredibly dangerous activity in need of heavy regulation.
Uh why do you think that the private companies running the service are just going to do what they're told? For that matter, what makes you think the government itself wants a privacy-first solution? It's better to keep data indefinitely in case you need it in the future.
They alreayd have all that information, you're just saying you want people to be able to drive while on the phone
"They already have all that information" should not be the same as "I'm OK with them constantly surveilling me". That kind of thinking is exactly why they can continue to double down on all the crazy surveillance and privacy invasion. You're normalizing not having any privacy.
Idk apparently we really the need the freedom to drive recklessly fuck this dogshit country lmao
I think this is common everywhere, but especially in the US there is the belief that there are "bad drivers" and "good. drivers" and so when speed cameras or anti-phone device catching someone that looks like them, it's obvious "collateral damage".
In my experience there are no good drivers, everyone gets distracted sometimes, and the myth of some uniquely "bad drivers" out there allows people to self justify their distracted driving because they aren't one of the out-group.
Exactly, everyone tailgates everyone handles their turns like shit, everyone speeds. The only good drivers are the ones sticking to the speed limit in the right lane everyone else drives like they want to die in a fiery crash. Oh but everyone slows down to rubber neck someone on the shoulder.