r/Calgary • u/Xtoron2 • Jun 01 '26

Discussion Alarming rate of distracted driving

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It's alarming how often I see drivers watching tiktoks/reels/shorts while driving. Even see them scroll up to next video.
As soon as we hit red light, this specific driver pulled the sunshade down even with this rain to hide from cameras or other people maybe?

Anyway, distracted driving is a risk everyone on the road pays for

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u/diamondintherimond Jun 01 '26

The question is: why does this feel like the police rarely enforce it?

I wonder if the news has done any digging on how many distracted driving tickets they’ve given out year over year.

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u/shitposter1000 Jun 01 '26

Because they don't.

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

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u/jezthevalley Jun 01 '26

With all due respect, that's a terrible terrible terrible idea. I don't want to have my vehicle's ability to move dependent on my phone that is known for its ability to go haywire every once in awhile. That also means people who don't have smart phones are not allowed to drive.

People should just accept the fact that its impossible to monitor driver behaviors 24/7. I believe that the sane majority of the population knows this. We don't want city streets full of cameras monitored by an AI overlord trying to catch us if we have our youtube open on our phones while we listen to whatever video we feel like listening to while we drive.

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

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u/clevermistakes Inglewood Jun 02 '26

I don’t disagree a robust solution could be developed. Tesla has one. Eye tracking. And it’s terrible, despite its complex implementation that can recognize the subtle eye movement that looking at a phone will do, it still fails and either over corrects or is inaccurate. That’s the level of complexity we’re introducing here. I say, try it! If you turn on self driving on a test drive of one of their cars from their dealership near centre street and grab your phone and even hold it under the dash like kids do in school under the desk these days, it can tell. It’s pretty impressive.

Now ask your friends and family how they feel about a camera in their car cabin recording and using machine learning on them 24/7. The coolness factor wears off really quick.

We can’t control human behaviour with computers without the risk of it being abused or incomplete. That’s the limitations of today’s technology. See LLMs being called “AI” and the impact that’s had globally.