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Texas Using WiFi to Encourage Driving Breaks
squidfrog writes "An AP article reports: 'To encourage drivers to take more frequent breaks, the Texas Department of Transportation wants to set up free wireless Internet access at rest stops and travel information centers. TxDOT, which says Texas is the first state to provide such free access at rest areas, began experimenting with WiFi hotspots last fall... Andy Keith, manager of TxDOT's maintenance division, said the state hopes to reduce fatigue-related accidents by encouraging drivers to stop more often.' Is public WiFi becoming a trend?" We previously mentioned this scheme a couple of weeks back, although not the motivation behind it.
"hopes to reduce fatigue-related accidents by encouraging drivers to stop more often."
Bah... Increased driver fatigue and now they won't be able to get anyone to leave!
particlesphere.com - quantum
or it's gonna encourage users to download more pr0n for the long trip.
Rest stops: Not just for anonymous sex anymore!
Driving a while
Fire up your laptop
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Now the long-haul truckers will stay up all night at the rest stop surfing the web instead of sleeping.
Personally, when I go on long trips, I don't like to stop at the rest stops any longer than necessary. They are, for the most part, not terribly pleasant places to spend a pleasant afternoon. If I want to take a longer break, I'll find a restaurant or a park in the nearest podunk town.
Either it will make fatigued drivers stop, or it will make them learn to type really really fast as they zoom through the WiFi hotspots...
And besides this is Texas what else is their to do while driving on I-10.
Personally, I like to set the cruise control and take a nap.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have heard in a while. It really sounds like a push from some wifi startup or something to suck government funds.
What percentage of sleepy people are there going to be on the road traveling in Texas that have a computer on them with wifi access and really want to stop to use it? Dunno, but probably not many.
What percentage of sleepy people are there going to be on the road traveling in Texas that want to stop at a rest stop every once and a while that has clean bathrooms, palatable water (ie, not that recycled toilet water), and maybe a free, or affordable cup of coffee that is palatable? I'd guess about 100. Anything below 100 is for those that don't drink coffee.
I vote put the wifi in!
It could be awesome. How about setting up some Ad-Hoc network across cars driving in between the rest stations. If you get enough users, you would never lose connectivity!
The only thing that hurts my eyes more than driving is reading a computer screen...
A rest stop in the middle of nowhere is really the last place you should lose situational awareness.
It's cool they want to do this, but I recall driving from Dallas to Salt Lake City via state highways in Texas (Dallas to Amarillo) and there wasn't a bathroom to be seen.
There was, however, a picnic stop every 50 miles. Didn't have the guts to relieve myself out those places, although I was tempted.
Remain lost in hidden worlds where I reign. Head engine and caboose in my toy train...
In some states, they're dirty and usually sort of creepy. (Arkansas has some of these.)
:)
In some places they're functional (I'm thinking of the turnpike plazas along the DC-NYC corridor), with fast food, usually working restrooms, gas stations. Not a place to spend much time, and I know that at least some of the NJ ones have a 2-hour limit, so not a good place -- not just for that reason! -- for a nap.
In some places they're actually friendly; the big state-entry ones in Tennesee, Colorado and Texas, for instance. Since I prefer to travel by car vs. airplane when possible, I've hit a lot of bad ones and a lot of good ones; Texas is high on the Good list in my experience. Also, Texas has a fair number of no-facilities parking rest stops out in the sticks, where there might be a few shaded picnic tables -- if fatigue creeps up, these are (literally) lifesavers when on rural roads with few places to stop. And free WiFi? Hey, even better
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
They can already trace you using your cell phone. Even if you turn your phone off, they could track your gas purchases if you use a credit/debit card. Even if they don't do these things, what's to stop them from installing cameras along the highway and using your license plate to track you? In fact, if you drive on toll roads (or toll bridges) they're already doing this.
:) Mod parent +1 funny.
I wouldn't worry about the government using wifi to track you. Unlike the other methods, all they could get would be your mac address (and maybe a list of the sites you visited) anyway. Of course you were joking
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
If someone had evil intentions, someone could really exploit free anonymous wireless access on a lonely freeway road. For example, say a person has control over a number of zombie machines on the internet; that person simply drives to one of these free wifi zones and begins launching DoS attacks. When/if these attacks are traced, they will be traced to an anonymous wireless network along some highway.
Also consider someone who is exchanging illegal files. You can trace their IP address, but what good is it if the only info in the logs available is a MAC address from a Linksys wireless NIC for a laptop?
Worst yet, consider how easy this will make spamming. Just take your laptop to one of these "rest stops" and send out 1,000,000 emails to unsuspecting users. Then when law enforcement examines the email headers, they see that the spammer was some guy who stopped to use the restroom and was gone.
This is a very true statement. I only make it 'home' every couple years now. The last was for one of my old high school reunion. I was only going to be around the house for 4 days after the reunion 2 hours away. My father was supposed to be there for the last two days. His pickup was delayed. -12 hours. He is limited to 8 hours a day. minus a few more hours. His drop off was delayed. He waited 12 hours. He hightails it home. And misses me by 2 hours since I had to leave amongst hurricane evac traffic and needed an extra hour to get to the airport to get out. (gotta love the carolinas in the fall . . .)
Truck drivers don't want to spend time at rest stops. When they are resting, they are doing just that; resting. But, with limitations on how much they can drive in a given day and over a given week, there is time where they have to do something. Cell phones are getting cheaper, especially with family to family calling, but there are always limits and rules that eventually bring that bill up.
Getting connectivity during one of those stops would allow him to IM with my mother and youngest brother. And if they do this in enough places (he doesn't often get down here to Texas that often), I'd be motivated to outfit his rig with some good wifi gear and try out some VOIP stuff (which might bomb, but its worth trying).
Military pensions for those who've faithfully and honorably served decades just doesn't go far enough. It's bad enough that my father has to work his retirement years away from his family. Any little thing that could improve that time he spends away being a part of the grand interstate commerce scheme and let him keep in touch I see as a good thing. Truck drivers aren't the scuzzy hollywood stereotype (though I'm sure there're some that are, I haven't met any yet) . . . Many are ex-military. And most know how to use a computer since most of those semis are equipped with Sat driven comptuers to monitor their locations and times spent driving now . . . it's just too bad those don't allow for data uplinks for them to hookup pc's into or supply a voip connection.
I doubt people will be too keen on the idea of using a government network to check email, IM, and surf the web.
So use SSH, VPN, or some other encrypted tunnel back to your home or office machine. Read or download email that way, and surf the web through a proxy.
Also, not many people just carry their laptop with them in the car. Most drivers want to get to where they are going as fast as they can.
I do. Even on vacation. And it's a bitch to find a feed on a two week, 5,000 mile road trip. But not as much of a bitch as being out-of-touch for two weeks (with those I'm willing to be IN touch with on a vacation, of course. B-) )
Truckers need to be in touch. So much so that the truckers often pay a significant charge at service plazas (i.e. Flying J) for internet access - either a terminal or WiFi to the cab. (Also: Many truckers live in their trucks for weeks at a time, so their recreational internet use depends on such feeds.)
Salesmen and other "road warriors" need it, too. Only place I know they can reliably find it free is Kinkos. They provide lots of free office-on-the-road service (such as free local phone and handy calling card dispensers) to small businesses and road warriors, to entice such people in. They make it all back with significant profit on printing and other office services they provide for a fee. (Also: Their T1 brings in big print jobs from the local businesses. So letting the customers plug into the hub and use the net is essentially free.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way