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Apple Bans DUI Checkpoint Apps
An anonymous reader writes "In late March, four US senators banded together and wrote a letter to Apple asking that they remove apps that alert users as to the whereabouts of DUI checkpoints. Now, Apple has revised its app store guidelines to ban those type of 'illegal' apps."
This is what freedom is all about.
Choose Android.
Choose Freedom.
Fuck the police.
I run a store. I don't want to sell beans in my store. I remove all beans from my store.
Do I have a legal leg to stand on here?
Thing is, a DUI test is an annoyance. If you're driving somewhere you want to get there without being stopped and having to prove your innocence.
I'm sure this is used by a lot of non-drink-drivers for this reason.
Automotive analogy: The problem with using BAC is that it's akin to checking the speed of your car by putting strain gages in the tires and measuring the radial strain to get at the rotational speed. It's just as silly.
What you need to do is a functional test: measure reflex speeds, vestibular nystagmus and its suppression, and such. All of that could be done with a portable eye tracker, quite cheaply, too (read: big profits for manufacturer). This would take care of people's varying sensitivity to alcohol, and would automatically catch drug users, too. It tests the performance of the visual system -- kinda important when you're driving.
BAC is an indirect way to measure impairment: it's impairment you're after, not BAC itself. BAC is a very approximate estimate for impairment! Even worse, BAC is measured indirectly again by poorly testing the amount of alcohol in exhaled air. That's two layers of indirection for measuring something that has direct, reproducible measurements available.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
> apps which have no purpose other than letting
> people drink-drive
That these checkpoints are called "DUI checkpoints" in no way suggests that:
1) Government checkpoints are authorized by the Constitution
2) There is no reason for non-drunks to avoid them
3) That banning products in high demand will do anything but create a black market for them.
If you're not a fan of censorship generally, I'd expect you to be a little more skeptical and analytical, a little less "I don't care if the authorities grope everybody's underpants because I've got nothing to hide".
the dangers of drunk driving have nothing to do with how your eye vibrates or your nystagmus suppresses or whatever.
There isn't some magic booze fairy that comes down and jerks the wheel. These are well-understood biological processes. You said it yourself above, "The danger is with people who are drunk enough to mess with their distance judgment or reflexes." So which is it? Biology or booze fairy?
At least BAC is a proxy that can be understood and everybody agrees is related to alcohol intake.
So what? It's also an arbitrary measurement that can mean wildly different things depending on any number of factors. If I usually have a six pack a day, and today I drank three beers, I'm probably over the limit, but in no way impaired. You obviously know that. So why are you spreading lies?
I can't stand drunk driving apologists.
I can't stand ad hominems.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
I don't drink and drive and I also don't enjoy being hit by asshole drunk drivers.
I don't want to be hit by asshole drunk drivers either, but I value my 4th Amendment rights more than a little bit more safety enforced by a police state.
Cops patrolling and looking for erratic drivers is the answer, not a police state searching innocent civilians with no cause.