Why do people use their phone in the car as if they were outside the car?

[ManMachine]

It's amusing that all the technology still can't recognize voice well.

Anyway, studies have shown that calling via bluetooth in the car is almost as distracting as using the phone directly. It's not the physical part, it's the mental part. The brain is somewhere else during a call.

Or put your faith in big tech's self driving capability.

 

[Calliope]

Anyway, studies have shown that calling via bluetooth in the car is almost as distracting as using the phone directly. It's not the physical part, it's the mental part. The brain is somewhere else during a call.

Sure, pretty much like talking to someone else riding in the car. Or listening in to the conversations of others in the car. Best to drive alone, or in silence.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

. . . with a man in front of you holding up a red flag

 

[Stirfry]

Sure, pretty much like talking to someone else riding in the car. Or listening in to the conversations of others in the car. Best to drive alone, or in silence.

Have a look at some of the research if you have time. It's fascinating to see why a passenger is different from a cell phone conversation.

 

[ManMachine]

Have a look at some of the research if you have time. It's fascinating to see why a passenger is different from a cell phone conversation.

Yes.

And similarly, an in-person meeting is different from a zoom session.

 

[Jerry Ham]

Happens to me most of the time. "Call Erin" I say.

call Erin (gaaah you had it!)

call Aaron

Contact not found

That's an easy fix. I had to do this too. Leave the name as Erin. Add a nickname in the nickname field and put Aaron. That will work. My wife's name is Cherie - not pronounced like Sherry. So I had to do the same - name stays as Cherie, but the nickname field has "Sure E" and that works.

 

[SidetrackedSue]

Yes.

And similarly, an in-person meeting is different from a zoom session.

Zoom and car phone conversations are both shared experiences with the other participants(s), so participants are not only interacting with each other but also with the same shared environment. That means that conversation will ebb and flow in response to external stimuli (a crashing sound outside the conference room, for instance.)

There are exceptions to in-car being less distracting than a phone call. Arguing children will be one.

But a conversation with my sister (who doesn't drive and who is argumentative by nature) is almost as bad as cell phone conversation because she lacks appreciation of the driving challenges I may be experiencing and thus pause while I switch all brain cycles to it, rather than splitting between the conversation and the task of driving. It doesn't help that a lot of the time I'm driving with her in unfamiliar city (Canada's largest) or places I've mapped for vehicle use while she has only mapped it for walking.

For the former, when my kids were young we lived rurally so I'd pull over to the shoulder and sit there until they smartened up.

For the latter, I have warning phrases and if she doesn't take the cue, then I simply scream "SHUT UP" at her. We only drive together a few times a year. I suppose if it was more often, I'd come up with a better coping strategy but pulling over to the shoulder until she stops the conversation is not an option when driving on heavy city streets. As for her smartening up, she's been a passenger in cars for 75 years and still hasn't learned good manners to the driver.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

And similarly, an in-person meeting is different from a zoom session.

Well yes, an in-person meeting is usually a complete waste of time because you have to sit though some boring presentation and subsequent discussion with absolutely nothing to contribute all the time wondering why you were "invited"

. . . whereas with a zoom call, you can at least ignore them all and get on with something vaguely productive (even if it's only doing the crossword)

 

[SidetrackedSue]

I have the voice recognition issues as well so find my phone less than useful for texting since not all nicknames work (I try never to have phone conversations while driving due to the distraction potential.) But I won't use my phone to overcome the Tesla shortcomings. I experience the distractions the screen causes far more than the majority of members of this forum, I assume due to my age, and since that is so obvious, I know better than to add the phone to those distractions.

The only time I'm tempted to look at my phone is due to the Android text messaging glitch introduced well over a year ago in an update. Other's have posted about it too and so I know it isn't just me, although I have yet to find a solution for it.

The glitch occurs when receiving text messages, in which there's a back and forth with a contact. Occasionally, in the middle of an exchange I'll receive a message from another contact that makes no sense. It makes no sense because it is a random message from months/years ago thrown up by the car's messaging app instead of the actual incoming text. I know I've been texted by the current contact but my car won't show me the message.

If I pull up Messages on my screen to read all recent messages, the errant message appears and the messages from the person I'm currently texting with include only the messages I've seen.

To see the missing message I need to read the text on my phone, and, in the latest example of the glitch, the missing text was "Not a problem" (in response to my apology for tardiness.) Since I know it is almost always something like that, i.e. not important, I don't pull over to read the message (or look at my phone while driving) but just attempt to ignore the hanging conversation.

One time, there were two people texting me at once, while I was on a freeway heading off on a road trip. Suddenly a third, long-ago, contact entered the conversation and I knew one of the other two had responded but I didn't know who or with what and there was the chance it was important. In that case, once I was through the city and on a sparsely-used divided highway, I put the car in FSDb and did check my phone to make sure I wasn't missing anything important that needed a change in my routing. I believe that is the only time I've used my phone while driving.

In September I was tempted to use the phone when heading out on a 2 hour drive in traffic and discovering I had no connection to Spotify. Tune-in has music but too many ads so I ended up frustrated (not the goal given the driving conditions.) My phone wasn't queued up with BT music and in order to do so I would have had to handle my phone but my basic distrust of FSDb in those conditions meant I didn't. It took me an embarrassingly long time to remember that I had an FM radio to help me focus my ADD on driving.

Another time I was tempted to use my phone but didn't, was when leaving on a 1700km solo road trip and going to text my safety contact that I was finally on my way (tardiness is a theme in my life) and discovering my phone would not connect with the car (it let me in, it let me drive, but it wouldn't let me use the phone as a device for text/call/BT-music.) I tried the easy forget device and reconnect hack with no luck and gave up and took break just an hour into the 17 hour drive to text my safety contact that I had connectivity issues. Then I rebooted the car. No joy, Rebooted the phone. No joy. Rebooted the car once more. That fixed it.

I see iOS issues posted on occasion in forums but my sense is that the car connects much more reliably with iOS than Android.

So I wonder if the people the OP observes using their phones 'as if they are outside the car' are all Android users.

 

[Stirfry]

I see iOS issues posted on occasion in forums but my sense is that the car connects much more reliably with iOS than Android.

So I wonder if the people the OP observes using their phones 'as if they are outside the car' are all Android users.

A small sample size here but I have never seem to have issues with my android. My wife/daughter with their iPhones are another story lol.

 

[SidetrackedSue]

A small sample size here but I have never seem to have issues with my android. My wife/daughter with their iPhones are another story lol.

Thanks, that makes me feel better!