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Watch TV On Your Satnav

Posted by kdawson on from the stupid-goes-right-to-the-bone dept.

Barence writes "Satnav firm Mio is launching a device with an integrated TV tuner. The Mio Spirit range includes a digital television tuner that is intended to be used 'during breaks in the journey or at their final destination.' However, safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel. When the system is first turned on a warning message is displayed, telling the user not to watch television while driving. If this is ignored, a secondary warning message kicks in if the GPS chip detects the vehicle is moving at more than 5mph. But that's it!"

6 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. That's fine.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ..there is such a thing as personal responsibility and we don't need a nanny to babysit us all the time.

    Life is like Unix and you are the superuser. With that comes the power to 'rm -rf' the system.. intentionally or not.

    --iamnotayam

    1. Re:That's fine.. by johannesg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ..there is such a thing as personal responsibility and we don't need a nanny to babysit us all the time.

      Life is like Unix and you are the superuser. With that comes the power to 'rm -rf' the system.. intentionally or not.

      --iamnotayam

      Nobody really cares if the driver kills himself while being terminally stupid. The problem is that they tend to take other people with them, people who did not have any part in their idiot choices. Your right to watch TV while driving does not override other people's right to live.

    2. Re:That's fine.. by rastoboy29 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is fine, except for the existence of nincompoops who are liable to rm -rf *you* or *me* while their texting or watching tv while driving.

      Some people should not be allowed to have root access sometimes.

      --
      expandfairuse.org
  2. Nice! by madfilipino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Get shitty drivers and give them mobile phones to talk on so they become even shittier drivers. Now get those bastards to watch TV while talking and texting on their mobile phones and we'll have the shittiest drivers on the road. Hopefully, these bastards will kill themselves without killing others, making the road safer for everyone else.

    Oh well, back to reality.

  3. Re:TV while drivin is Darwin Award worthy... by IBBoard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly what I was thinking - there's a use case where you know your route but only want to carry one device and so entertain the other passengers by using it as the TV rather than using the SatNav (which you may need later) as a navigation device.

    Yeah, people watching TV while driving is a problem, but there are far more prevalent problems that'll cause just as many accidents: people doing 100Mph+ on Motorways with warnings of queuing ahead, people not indicating, people on mobile phones, etc.

  4. It's called... by Antony-Kyre · · Score: 4, Insightful

    wreckless driving, and it shouldn't be tolerated. Shouldn't anyone watching TV while driving lose their license?