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Comment by mantap | Hacker News Reader

Time on a train is at least semi-productive time. You can read HN! Which, face it, is what you'd be doing anyway. Time in a car is just spent staring at the road.

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Actually no, here in this German state better bring a book along, because that mobile connection between cities will drop down to G or even go away quite often.

But you can do old style, work offline and then profit from train stop at a station to sync the data.

I spent a year commuting by train and read so many books, it was great.

I like to call my family and girlfriend during my commutes. It’s much nicer to do that in the privacy and comfort of a car than in public transportation. There’s also audiobooks and music.

Oh, so you're that weirdo who always makes everyone around him in the vehicle listen to his loud phone conversations, making it next to impossible to focus on a book, or whatever else they were trying to do. :)

I think the GP's point is that talking on phone can be done without disturbing anybody else when you're in your own car

Ah, I seem to have misread GGP. My apologies.

Not sure why you're getting down-voted as having people talking (often loudly) on their phone on public transport makes it unpleasant for everyone else. I try and save calls for the car part of my commute, but then get accused of only calling cause I have nothing better to do...

You do appreciated the relative silence (no one on their phone or talking above a whisper) on trains in Japan.

Brisbane trains on the other hand - you need to wear noise-cancelling headphones (music optional) to block out other people's conversations - even in the quiet carriages.

> Not sure why you're getting down-voted

Maybe because just speaking on the phone in traffic makes a lot less attentive so you're prone to create accidents.

I would consider talking hands-free (if you're holding a phone you deserve to lose your license) no more distracting than listening to music.

There are worst things like eating or talking to someone else in the car. (look at the road not the person when you're talking)

Just phoning, even hands-free, is distracting.

actually it is and that has been tested. People on the phone drive more or less like drunk people. It's because of brain engagement.

Listening to music is passive (yes, even if you happen to be singing along, as you're just parroting memorized lyrics), whereas during a phone call, you have to focus on what the other party is saying, and formulate sentences to answer them.

That affects your attention on driving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safe...

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-18024-008

>The results indicate that passenger conversations differ from cell phone conversations because the surrounding traffic not only becomes a topic of the conversation, helping driver and passenger to share situation awareness, but the driving condition also has a direct influence on the complexity of the conversation, thereby mitigating the potential negative effects of a conversation on driving.

Thanks for the links, learnt something new. The bit about the cognitive load preparing to speak or speaking rather than passive listening was interesting.

Yes, when talking to someone in the car they should be aware of the traffic and pause the conversation, where you have to tell the person on the other end of the phone that you need to go.

That doesn't seem like a good reason to receive downvotes.

Yeah, back when I used to take the train to work (about 35m each way) I got so much more reading done than I do nowadays.

In the extremely unlikely event that there's room to hold your phone in front of your face, and you have a free hand (usually it's one on the overhead rail, one holding your bag).

It has happened for me, but only if I board at the beginning of the line or commute several hours off peak.

That is certainly not extremely unlikely, at least not in any European country I've been to. I'd say at least 80% of the travelers look at their phones, a book, paper etc. I can do it almost any time I choose to.

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