I keep mine in the cup holder. I can’t have it buzzing in my pant pocket when family calls - everything is 9-1-1 to them. Pop on one ear bud and I never have to look at the phone to use the phone.
I think your wording is sound yet not vague enough to circumvent. And your opinion is sound as well. 
Actually, no the big screen is not an distraction. I love the 17" screen in mine. A quick glance at it for navigation and status of traffic bunching up ahead of you, is maybe less a distraction than trying to quickly pinpoint the arrow on a small Garmin GPS device. We find ourselves looking a that big screen to the point, its just as quick a look as side mirrors or rear view mirrors. Sure, sure, there’s stuff like Streaming music or radio that we can also bring up on the screen, but as responsible drivers there’s less a temptation to look or “dial” another station instead of waiting for a traffic light than you might think. Besides, we also have voice controls for many functions especially calling up specific artist or songs. As Joe Friday used to say: Just the facts ma’am, just the facts. Confident someone is going to disagree, but its true.
I see no compromise to safety using a hands-free device. Speakerphone or earbuds are, to me, just as safe as another person in the car carrying on a conversation. The law allows both, so its simply up to the driver to use those tools wisely. Okay, with me, I simply choose not to. 
It’s not a distraction when your Tesla is on autopilot.
In any car that doesn’t drive itself it’s the fastest way to collide with things. Unless that screen is 17" wide by 5" tall and is part of the dashboard.
17" tall and 11" wide.
Research from many years ago suggested that the phone’s initial ring (before ID) was the biggest culprit in ‘vacating’ a driver from his surroundings (as he reflexively speculated on who it might be.) 
Interesting thread.
To use your camera’s that way, you just have to put them into Travel mode?
Right?
I have a road trip coming up, and would like to give that a go…
Thanks,
DeVoiD
If that was addressed to me, no. There is no such thing as “travel mode” on the V2 and V3 cameras. In my case, the cameras are powered 24x7 and connect to my WiFi at home. Sometimes I have a Cellular WiFi hotspot in the truck, When that hotspot is on in the truck, I turn off that SSID on my WiFi at home.
This is a failing of the traffic dept in your city. There needs to be a grace period of 10-15 seconds where all lights are red at the same time. That’s to reduce collisions caused by running reds. It works better than red-light cameras. If this is rampant they should post a cop there during peak hours. That garbage truck driver probably needs to go back to school… or be place on desk duty. Post the third pic on your city’s Twitter and Instagram feeds.
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NO F’s given!
WOW!!!
It’s just a typical day in the entire San Francisco Bay Area. I have a 128GB SD card in my dash cam and it is full of events like this. The cam will use a 512GB card and I’m sure it would be full of the same thing.
15 seconds? That would not go over well!
Actually I think it’s the other way. Currently most (not all) signals are set to have a second or so of all red, so too many drivers just assume that to be the case and “know” that they can stretch the yellow by that couple seconds. Stretch that out to 15 seconds of all red and LOTS of drivers will be massively stretching out the yellow - by many seconds…
I work for a large city in the Los Angeles basin, and the police motorcycle shop is next door to us, so we talk to the traffic cops on a regular basis. They have said that doing traffic enforcement around here is a “target rich environment”. They hardly finish one traffic stop before making another one.
The timing of the lights is correct. The problem is there is no consistent enforcement. Same with turn indicators. Bad behavior is the norm, hence the phrase, “it just turned red.” Where I come from you’d get punished for inconsiderate driving.
Yep, gone are the days when good policing was warning you not to make that mistake again. Now its called Policing for Profit.
The ones that suffer are us. Everyone at court is paid to be there but you, even the cops. They’re paid to lie and are typically believed by the establishment because they are an intrinsic part of the establishment system. The police bring in tens of thousands of new customers to the system each month and the establishment needs the police to keep the system of lawyers, police officers, prison guards and probation officers lubricated and flushed with taxpayer cash. If the establishment wanted law enforcement officers, they would hire lawyers or at a minimum require a law degree as a term of employment. But because they don’t; instead, we are offered order-followers.
And a dash cam is your only equalizer
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I wrote 10-15 seconds. So you know it could be somewhere in between depending on the intersection. This was done on my street and there’s been 1 collision in three years where before it was averaging 1 collision a year. And traffic is heavier and faster now. So that did the trick. No one’s afraid of a speeding ticket apparently so it’s about baby-proofing the intersection.
More baby-proofing? Adding a bike lanes and on-street parking is the best way to slow traffic down and reduce pedestrian deaths. More lanes = speeding and running reds.
And more to the point: having a dashcam memory card FULL of crashes and near hits is kinda sad because it will NEVER resolve the problem. I’m guessing it does little for dash-cammers since most collisions are either easy to figure out or it’s a no-fault state.
Stopping to tell a collision victim that you have the whole thing recorded should get dashcammers into a “How Not To Be Your Parents” seminar.
Your numbers are still off. Yellow lights are 3 to 6 seconds depending on the posted speed. All red (before the next green) is a small fraction of that.
I think in California people don’t follow the yellow-is-for-clearing-the-intersection (assuming you can stop safely beforehand) and instead use red for that. I wouldn’t be surprised even if people are taught that.
I just checked here and it’s about 4-5 seconds where all lights are red. I noticed a few cars punch it on the yellow light even though they’re too far to clear the intersection before the red. In these instances had the other light gone green immediately there could’ve been at least one collision. The next light over has 1-2 seconds of all red and there’s been at least 2 collisions this year. Most people know red means stop. We’re baby-proofing ourselves from drivers who just don’t care or think of consequences.
Well the place I live has 134,000 people so I am sure the city hired a Traffic Engineering company. I’ll be sure to tell them they need to change all the lights 
I’ve been a 'Dashcammer" for a long time and intend to stay one, it has done me more good than harm.