Using your phone while riding becomes complicated (Belgium law)

M. Schrijver

For me, personally, fiddeling with my phone while riding is something i want to avoid. Simly because it is not safe. When riding a motorcycle it is even less saver because you are more vurnerable.
Sadly MRA Next is an app which still needs your attention when riding. Because it is not stable enough and somehow it seems programmed this way that is needs your attention.

Recently a new Belgian Law became active. This law prohibits you to touch your phone while riding. The punishment is pretty severe.
When caught. 15 days not allowed to drive anyhing which needs a drivers licences and a fine of max. 4000 euro's.

Because smartphone useage is a problem nowadays and causing accidents. I assume other country will make the punishment for using smartphone in traffic also more severe.

I hope this is a sign towards MRA how urgent it becomes to make MRA Next it needs less user interference than it is required at the moment.
I suspect that things like Android Auto en Apple CarPlay will become more prominent in or on our vehicles.

Nick Carthew

@M-Schrijver I very seldom have to make any changes to an MRA route that I am using but when I do I use my SilverFox Bluetooth Controller. It is also illegal to touch a phone or gps device here in the UK.

Corjan Meijerink

To be fair, you really do not need to touch the app that much! Skipping viapoints would be the only thing really

Or if you do not agree with the app / want to manually select another waypoint you might need your phone. I rarely encounter a situation where I need to touch the phone while driving.

If you feel the need to control the app while riding, bluetooth controllers (we support many) are an excellent solution. Native CarPlay / Android Auto devices already are controllable using buttons in your car / on the handlebar.

M. Schrijver

@Corjan-Meijerink
Skipping a routepoint is the whole issue. I've tried it in Schotland with the handlebar controller. It costs me a few hunderd meters of distance an no eyes on the road to skip a point in Android Auto.

Press OK to popup the options.
Scroll with the cursor to the skip button. Multiple times push on the cursor button is needed.
Press OK to use the skip function.
Then confirm you want to skip a point by pressing the OK button again. You need to read which point is gonna be skipped and remember which is the last popint you saw on your screen. Because maybe you need to skip more points.
This is not a safe procedure and totally unnecessary. The software should handle this flawless.

You are correct. When everything goes as it should be, then there is no need for touch the phone. But if things are not going as it should be there should be no reason to touch you phone. The software should fix this period.

Corjan Meijerink

@M-Schrijver I understand.
The shapingpoints will be skipped by the app automatically without any interaction. Viapoints won’t.

If you dismissed / cancelled the resume option, you indeed need to skip a lot of waypoints manually. Just do that before getting on the bike

But as said, skipping more waypoints will be possible too from CP/AA in the future. Don’t however expect all features to magically work without any interaction.

M. Schrijver

I've been driving with TomTom Go for many years.
This is trackbased navigation but it taught me that magic can happen. TomTom Go is now a rocksolid navigation tool. It does not require user input when riding. When something happens and i am forced to take an alternative route, i force TomTom Go to follow me and mostly within a kilometer more or less it understand my intention and guides me with an logical bypass back to the original route. In many cases TomTom Go calculated the same route as pointed out by roadsigns for the alternative route.

@Corjan-Meijerink said in Using your phone while riding becomes complicated (Belgium law):

If you dismissed / cancelled the resume option, you indeed need to skip a lot of waypoints manually. Just do that before getting on the bike

Do you know how frustrating this is when you know it is not necessary.
When i write some comment i get the impression that i'm a shouting person in the dessert.
But when is speak to other persons during holidays or meetings. I get the feeling that i request is not so much different what most other people like.
Just navigation software that thinks for them.

Con Hennekens

@M-Schrijver said in Using your phone while riding becomes complicated (Belgium law):

Do you know how frustrating this is when you know it is not necessary.

It feels like you already have a really great alternative. Why not just use that?

When i write some comment i get the impression that i'm a shouting person in the dessert.

Your suggestions are very welcome. The way you think you have to enforce them for me personally is not.

RetiredWingMan

@Peter-Schiefer said in Using your phone while riding becomes complicated (Belgium law):

Carried over to touch handling the simplest way is to prevent any touch using when the smartphone is somewhat in move with e.g. more then 7 km/h by GPS measurement

How does this work for passengers in a vehicle?

Howard Millichap

@Nick-Carthew it is not illegal to touch your phone or satnav in the UK so long as it is in a cradle. It's then not "hand held" and would be no different to touching a screen built in to a car. To be prosecuted you would have to be considered as not being in full control of your vehicle. e.g. swerving all over the road whilst fiddling with it.

Nick Carthew

@Howard-Millichap Thank you for the clarification. A Bluetooth controller is still the best option though

Lynchy67

@Nick-Carthew

Why not ditch Via Points completely then just assign a specific colour to shaping points to be a sudo Via Point.
No interaction needed.

M. Schrijver

@Lynchy67
With what purpose?

Lynchy67

@M-Schrijver

To negate the need to have any interaction with the route at all.

Nick Carthew

@Lynchy67 said in Using your phone while riding becomes complicated (Belgium law):

@Nick-Carthew

Why not ditch Via Points completely then just assign a specific colour to shaping points to be a sudo Via Point.
No interaction needed.

Via points are useful for marking stops as via points can be separated, by this I mean that you can use the ETA box to see time and distance to the next via point, useful if you have a rumbling tum like me and as I said I seldom need to interact in that sense, ie skipping but if I do it is simple with the SilverFox controller. Most of my interactions with the app are zooming and checking the ETA for the next stop.

Con Hennekens

@Lynchy67 said in Using your phone while riding becomes complicated (Belgium law):

No interaction needed.

What interaction would be prevented but that exactly?

M. Schrijver

I suspect the autoskip function.