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Any strategies to cope with the MI distracted driving law?
(www.michigan.gov)
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Start a playlist/audio book, whatever before you put the car in drive. Then let it play while you drive.
Set your destination before you drive, then hit "go"...and then follow the directions while you drive.
Did you get a text or email? Cool it will still be there when you get done driving. So instead of looking at it, just keep driving.
It's genuinely, seriously, legitimately, honestly, definitively not that hard. Stay off your phone, focus on driving your 2000 lb death machine. People did it for damn near 100 years before touch screen phones were invented. YOU TOO CAN DO IT!
I totally agree from a safety perspective.
To play devils advocate just a bit--this is objectively reducing folks productivity and quality of life, particularly for folks that aren't privileged to work from hom, live near work, afford to purchase hands free tech, or be child-free etc.. These folks probably already have inequitable quality of live/productivity challenges. Not saying it's a "bad law" or anything, safety is almost definitely worth it, it's just annoying that as usual the measure will most negatively effect more vulnerable people.
It would be fun to quantify productivity loss and quality of life loss vs. gains in safety/public health--i'll look around for statistics.
Bluetooth has been standard in cars for almost 20 years depending on the manufacturer, you don't need extra equipment to handle calls that are actually emergencies. I'm not a fan of the law for different reasons, but people need to stop using phones while driving, you don't need to try and up productivity that aggressively.
If you're saying most cars have had Bluetooth for the past 20 years, that's absolutely wrong.