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Running Apps From Your Car's Dashboard
An anonymous reader writes "I guess is was inevitable, now that BMW is letting you view and make tweets from behind the wheel, but is it really a good idea to let people run smartphone apps from their dashboard monitor? I guess for navigation you could run your favorite map-app there, but there is nothing to stop people from running other apps on their dashboard too. It might be better than texting from the handset, but I'm not sure I want people playing Angry Birds while they drive."
>> I'm not sure I want people playing Angry Birds while they drive
Here in Boston, we use the same techniques for both.
Where would the police come in here?
Yes, in the Wild Wild West, everybody could do whatever the hell they wanted in the privacy of their own automobile while driving down the public roads. However, in the real world, we should probably think this through a little bit.
But I'm not sure that an article whose first paragraph contained the phrase 'Smartphone-centric in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems are the next step in mobile convenience' is the place to start.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Why do you think what you want people do to with their cars is any of your business, as long as it doesn't involve hurting you or someone else?
Punish them if they do something stupid and cause a traffic accident... let them work out what they're allowed to do with their insurance company that may have to pay for the consequences, but how did we get to the point where joe anonymous may get a say via the police over what software people are allowed to run?
Because frequently it *does* involve hurting someone else: it's called a fatal car accident, where the person who wasn't playing Angry Birds dies. The person wrecklessly driving will of course face all kinds of consequences from the police/courts/insurance company for the accident (and quite possibly manslaughter charges on top of it), but that doesn't bring the victim back to life.
You must not drive apparently. The majority of people are barely capable of driving without any distractions. I'm all for the Libertarian idealism but too many slack jawed mouth breathers ruined it. Sorry.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Could lead to playing Angry Cars inadvertently.
Recklessly, not wrecklessly. They've definitely caused a car wreck.
Difference between proactive and reactive, I guess. Proactive is generally better because, really, how much help would you be after you're dead in getting justice from the stupid? The dumb mass is everywhere.
rewriting history since 2109
Neither the court nor the insurance company can raise your victims from the dead. It's too late then.
...enabled in car systems?
Until recently, I had no touchscreens in my car, but once I got my new shiny smartphone, it had a rather cool "Car mode", where it made all the buttons large and easy to press, etc...
However nice it was in theory, I found that once I mounted it on my dash, it became a right PITA to operate while driving. While complex things (like setting up the maps) would make sense to stop at the side and fiddle with, other things (like setting the volume, or switching playlists/songs) shouldn't.
The biggest annoyance was the fact that operating the touchscreen required me to look at it, even for simple things like the volume control or music switching. I could operate all the major functions of my old car radio without even looking at it, it was well laid out, and buttons were different shapes and sizes, really easy to learn.
I really think touchscreens are not ready for car use just yet, at least until they develop some overlay that can change its tactile feedback. Anything that requires you to look at it to operate should have no place in the dashboard IMO (if it was mounted only on the passenger side out of reach of the driver, that would be good as well, but then I suspect some people would just lean over while hurtling down the motorway).
I don't know, I feel this will just increase the number of accidents due to people looking at the screen in order to find the song they want, or to tweet or something else... and as someone who has to share the roads with them, it is somewhat of a worry.... :/
Why do you think what you want people do to with their cars is any of your business, as long as it doesn't involve hurting you or someone else?
You can't make a statement like this without also defending the idea that "Smartphone-centric in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems" won't involve hurting yourself or someone else.
Punish them if they do something stupid and cause a traffic accident... let them work out what they're allowed to do with their insurance company that may have to pay for the consequences
A) Driving is a privelege, not a right.
B) Your statement accepts that the law can force you to purchase car insurance. Why are other restrictions on driving so much more onerous?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"I'm not sure I want people playing Angry Birds while they drive" They just need at add a speed dial button for your insurance company. On the bright side you can play it while you wait for the police and tow truck to arrive.
Maybe the Germans can exhibit a bit of self control behind the wheel while driving?
So the story goes with VW's engineers that they kept getting complaints from the American dealers that their cars lacked cup holders. The engineers couldn't fathom why you would want a cup of anything while driving. So they determined it was just to store something while driving to a destination. So for the Mk3 Golf/Jetta we got cup holders... That will hold exactly a 12 floz can. Anything larger won't fit.
The Germans have a complete different mentality about driving that most Americans don't get. I got to visit a while ago for a week and when you're doing 200 kph you don't have time for a cell phone. The autobahn gently twists and turns unlike some American highways which you could write your biography if the car's aligned.
You know what driver's also shouldn't do? Mess with the radio, change the A/C setting, reach into the glove box, read a book, use the rear seat cupholder....
For a place where lots of people say we should carpool more, a whole lot of you seem to have forgotten about a little thing called PASSENGERS.
Not every feature on a vehicle is meant to be operated by the driver while it is moving.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Would this person's prosecution for causing an accident resulting in death deter other people from behaving similarly?
Do you really think that setting up regulations to ban or approve applications that are allowed to run on a computer would deter someone more than the possibility of causing death, either theirs or others? Have you thought through the enforcement regime required to ensure people don't have "unapproved" applications loaded on their car computer? Are we talking an annual inspection of their data, or what, you must be a government approved vehicle computer system or application provider? Gee, the possibilities for abuse are just endless, aren't they?
How about we skip all that and just hold people responsible for their actual actions that actually harm others, instead of creating a police and nanny state because we're afraid someone may misuse their freedom in some minor way "we" don't approve of?
What's next, regulations about the types of toilet paper, flushing mechanisms or light bulbs "we" approve of? Ridiculous, right?
How about, mind your own damn business until it actually affects you? Have people really lost sight of liberty so much? Or do they just not think things like this through?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
BMW is hardly breaking ground here.
Ford SYNC has done SMS and Email from the dash for years, and units from several aftermarket stereo makers will link to your phone's Wifi hotspot to run Pandora and other Internet apps.
Nothing in this story constitutes anything new.
So explain to me why a passenger would need to have their smartphone in hand and have the application for it appear on the dash, rather than just looking at it in their hand, that doesn't involve the driver.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
But then again, some people drive apparently without having payed any attention in driver's education, and society deals with that too. I think we should focus, moreso, on sense of personal responsibility, in such things.
As far as the app thing: We could try to stop that matter of innovation,but I do not know if we could succeed at halting it. I am, admittedly, biased about it however. I think it sounds like a reasonable development in concepts of vehicle utility - and I am not enough convinced that it would be of any concern for the many responsible drivers around - overall, per capita, and so on.
I'm waiting to see how many posts pile up about voice recognition being the way to go in automobiles. It is arguably a better alternative to controlling multimedia functions in a car, definitely better than anything touch screen based. Frankly I wish the legislators would wise up and ban all touch input built into cars going forward. It is a disaster. Hard buttons are the safest way to control auxiliary functions in an automobile. I am being a bit hypocritical though, as I have considered integrating a really cheap Android tablet into my car for GPS and music. I also don't see there being a chance for any kind of ban given the propensity of GPS to use touch input.
Really, their just need to be better UI design guidelines for automotive use. Car mode on Android is alright, but still offers too much for the average mind to scan and pick from. I always thought the UI styles used in most GPS units was best, never really more than 2-4 choices at a time on the screen.
I could see a TTS system reading feeds from twitter, facebook, rss, etcetera being useful and cool even if I would never use it. Get in the car, get on the morning commute and get your /. feed instead of AM talk radio I suppose.
I joke about voice recognition and commands because as many here are aware, vocalization takes 80% of the average person's brain processing power. That is why so many people can't talk on the phone and drive (besides the fact that they are self-centered, spoiled a-holes).
Have people really lost sight of liberty so much?
Yes. They get too emotional about casualties in the name of freedom and opt to restrict what other people are able to do. They cannot handle even a single loss, and they don't even realize that their 'solutions' will often not even solve the problem.
This is why some people support the TSA and the Patriot Act. "We must restrict everyone's rights in exchange for a bit of safety." It's just that there are different things that they want to sacrifice freedom for. In some cases, it's terrorism (restricting people's rights to "stop the terrorists" doesn't seem popular here). In some cases, it's children (I've noticed this is more popular here, especially when it comes to issues like child porn).
By your logic I should be allowed to get shitfaced drunk while driving and society gets no say unless I screw up.
Mind you I personally have no problem with this, I've known people that are safer drivers blacked-out drunk than some people are stone sober. They rarely get caught because they don't give off any "warning signs" no weaving, skipping stop signs, etc. But if we go that route lets start actually enforcing reckless driving laws with severe penalties. If you can't stay in your lane and obey the traffic laws what does it matter if it's because you're drunk, texting, or trying to break up a fight between the kids? Your vehicle is just as big a threat either way.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Make the auto manufacturer liable if they made provisions for the driver to be able to display to the driver applications not related to operation of the vehicle.
On the "good" side... the technology increases the chances for many cars getting close enough to run a Beowulf cluster using their dashboard computers.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
How about we skip all that and just hold people responsible for their actual actions that actually harm others, instead of creating a police and nanny state because we're afraid someone may misuse their freedom in some minor way "we" don't approve of?
But how to determine their 'actual action'? Would you be ok with data recorders that log all the actions, so we can hold them responsible? Or do you just want to throw up your hands and say "Oh, there's no way to know, we have to trust what they tell us because they wouldn't lie."
And should we do the same for everyone else? Trust truck drivers (who get paid by the mile) to take long, relaxing rests cross-country instead of being wired on white crosses? Trust school bus drivers not to drink too much from the bottle they keep beneath the seat? Trust that dump truck driver not to get distracted by the TV he's got propped up on his dash?
Personally, I'd rather have neither the data recorder nor the game-boy dashboard. But I do know that if the driver has access to that game-boy, some of them will be using it. Some of them are already texting, reading, drinking coffee, chatting on the phone, applying makeup, or all of the above, we know that some of them will be playing Angry Birds. And these are people who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time.
I'm sure that extra "freedom" is worth your life (and that of your children, given that they're from your gene pool). But, you know, after you've been squished into a twisted ball of metal and shredded meat, whether the perp is "held responsible" isn't going to be real important to you.
Why would a group of people want a display they can all see, with a wireless control mechanism... why, why, why?
Everyone here complains about the "$foo on a computer" patent nonsense, but every time i see "$foo in a car" articles they are full of people shouting about mutilated accident victim porn.
Look, I get it, drivers shouldn't be messing around while they are driving. I agree that far. But that doesn't mean the passengers have to cower in silence for fear of creating a distraction. I would think if the passengers are entertained they would be much less likely to distract the driver.
ALSO:
In the not too distant future we are going to be seeing self-driving cars, and I don't blame the car makers for beginning to test the waters for socially enabled in car entertainment. Yes, some idiots are going to kill themselves and some innocents messing with it, but idiots already kill plenty of people with the widgets, makeup, pets, etc. that people interact with in their car. You can only engineer around stupid to a certain degree, after which, sure, you've made a perfectly safe car, but only a handful of people can afford the damn thing, or it's incredibly boring to operate (which can be dangerous in itself).
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
The other day, I pulled up behind a lady driving a Smart four two. In one hand, she had a phone held to her ear. In the other, she had a cigarette that she was ashing out the window.
Prior to that, I've seen people watching DVDs on portable players on their dashboard while driving.
Prior to that, I've seen women putting on their makeup, men shaving, people of both sexes eating with both hands while driving.
Prior to that, I've seen couples making out while driving.
I'm not going to argue that any of this is good. But the fact of the matter is that some drivers will always be unfit behind the wheel. If they aren't playing Angry Birds, they'll be finding some other way to distract themselves and other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and small furry animals will find themselves at their mercy.
The solution isn't to worry about apps on the dashboard. The solution is to be more careful about who gets a license to begin with and to be more vigilant about taking it away when a driver proves themselves to be unfit to be on the road.
the point of putting your smartphone platform on the car's dash is that you can leverage the developer base and existing software that is already developed. The entertainment software on a car is pretty primitive compared to what you have on your phone, so there's no real reason not to put it there. If you have a problem with putting iOS on a car's dashboard, you've probably got a problem with running the existing software there anyway.
Whether we like it or not, smartphone and app integration with cars is quite inevitable in near future. Apart from opening up a plethora of possibilities with apps, it is also about convenience (just a wild thought: sitting in your house, you plan a road trip with your friends using maps on your smartphone and later simply download them to your car's navigation system). One major example of such an integration is Toyota's Entune.
that the result will be similar to those in the user images for this product:
http://www.amazon.com/Wheelmate-Laptop-Steering-Wheel-Desk/dp/B000IZGIA8
In the case of a glancing collision, spinnout, etc you can easily get thrown around the cab by forces considerably stronger than you could hope to resist. A seatbelt will keep you in place behind the wheel where you still have a some control over your still-moving vehicle and can hopefully bring it to a stop without any secondary collisions. An only slightly weaker argument applies to front-seat passengers, since they can easily be thrown into your lap severely impairing your control. Rear seat passengers on the other hand are more a case of "think of the children" since any collision which manages to throw them into the front seat will likely have stopped the car anyway. Though, now that I think about it, without seatbelts children are far more likely to be clambering around the back of the car distracting you, or perched between the front seats so they can see out the windshield (and get thrown around the cab), so there's might be some validity to it after all.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Would this person's prosecution for causing an accident resulting in death deter other people from behaving similarly?
Probably not, but that's not the point.
Do you really think that setting up regulations to ban or approve applications that are allowed to run on a computer would deter someone more than the possibility of causing death, either theirs or others?
Yes, I do. If given the opportunity to play Angry Birds on the dashboard, many will opt to do it, because the barrier to entry is nonexistent. People generally believe that the worst won't happen to them, and that it'd be alright because the foreseen circumstances are just fine. However, it is inherently impossible to account for unforeseen circumstances. These circumstances can, in many cases, be avoided with quick reflexes and complete attention on the road, but trying to line up the perfect shot would inherently prohibit one from realizing the danger before it's too late.
Have you thought through the enforcement regime required to ensure people don't have "unapproved" applications loaded on their car computer?
Yes, and it's called "what's worked for the past century: don't run apps on your dashboard at all". Wanna add a trip computer or GPS stats on there? Fine, I'm down with that. But there's no conceivable reason to add games to a dashboard as it does nothing whatsoever to provide better performance to the vehicle or the driver. Just because something is possible doesn't make it a good idea.
Are we talking an annual inspection of their data, or what, you must be a government approved vehicle computer system or application provider?
No, we are talking a dashboard that doesn't run apps.
What's next, regulations about the types of toilet paper, flushing mechanisms or light bulbs "we" approve of? Ridiculous, right?
Redacto ad absurdum much? I'm pretty sure that there are some form of regulations in place to limit the possibility of making toilet paper out of fiberglass or light bulbs out of nuclear waste, because that's the level of absurdity this line requires to make it work.
How about, mind your own damn business until it actually affects you?
My best friend lost her mom in a car accident to a distracted driver. Sue me for the one degree of separation.
Have people really lost sight of liberty so much?
If you want to play angry birds while driving on a closed course or the middle of the desert, go right ahead. It's not a significant infringement of your personal liberties to say that while you're on public highways and operating a motor vehicle that you should act in a manner that doesn't risk the lives of the people next to you for your own entertainment.
Or do they just not think things like this through?
You're defending the notion of adding entertainment in an unnecessary and potentially dangerous manner to cars that will be driving on public roads and putting it under the vise of a liberty issue. I'll take the hit on the "not thinking things through" schtick once you can explain to me how this benefits anyone.
Good job on not even attempting to post an answer to my post.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
So your situation is to have the passengers display entertainment on the dash board for everyone to see when they could just use the built in displays in the head rests for the back and again the actual smartphone for the person in shotgun..
I understand the "passenger" argument, and i do believe that passengers have a responsibly not to create a distraction.
As for your comment on self driving cars, if you are in a self driving car, then you are all passengers, a computer is the driver, and i wouldn't want the computer distracted beyond it's ability to operate the vehicle.. if you want to "test the waters for socially enabled in car entertainment" that effects the current meat space driver/operator wait till you have the self driving cars so you can let them be entertained by i while the computer drives the car, but it would be unwise to do it before hand.
If you really want to watch a movie on your way to work, do it in a manner where you aren't the one in control of a 3000lbs object traveling at 50 mph while watching the movie.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
I guess it all depends how well you multitask. For example I'm driving right now and playing Angry Birds while typing this message. I really don
NO CARRIER
Where I live (Pennsylvania, USA) using a phone for anything except a GPS while driving is illegal. If course it's impossible for a police officer to prove you were doing something else so the law is generally unenforceable, but it made some people somewhere feel good. Apparently there's still no law against being a complete idiot while driving, but that seems to be everywhere.
Distracted morons are one reason why I drive full-size trucks with ugly accessories such as liftgates and tow-truck bumpers.
Besides using them for their intended purpose, such add-ons get driver attention. Flat black Rustoleum FTW!
I also keep my triball Reese hitch installed as a standoff. Anyone who rear-ends me deserves to lose a radiator, not just a bumper cover.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You (and presumably the submitter) are hung up on the word "dash" meaning where the drivers instruments are located, but if you read the article they are pretty clearly talking about the center console. There's even a picture clearly showing that, and the phrase "display the data and apps on the in-dash head unit" should tell you that we're talking about the standard existing location for the hi-fi/satnav/tv. Really not a big deal.
Have people really lost sight of liberty so much?
Yes. They get too emotional about casualties in the name of freedom and opt to restrict what other people are able to do. They cannot handle even a single loss, and they don't even realize that their 'solutions' will often not even solve the problem.
This is why some people support the TSA and the Patriot Act. "We must restrict everyone's rights in exchange for a bit of safety." It's just that there are different things that they want to sacrifice freedom for. In some cases, it's terrorism (restricting people's rights to "stop the terrorists" doesn't seem popular here). In some cases, it's children (I've noticed this is more popular here, especially when it comes to issues like child porn).
Comparing the negative response to the idea of installing Twitter in a car to the hysterical comparison of such negative responses to the support of the TSA and the Patriot Act and strongly implying support of totalitarianism? Slashdot's all well and normal then, the cute little hippy libertarian tykes.
Fucking ridiculous.
Comparing the negative response to the idea of installing Twitter in a car to the hysterical comparison of such negative responses to the support of the TSA and the Patriot Act and strongly implying support of totalitarianism?
They're merely inconsistent. The logic is the same. "Surrender some freedom for security." The amount of freedom is irrelevant. Getting fondled at an airport, for instance, is much less severe than it could be. But some people pretend that because it's only a small loss of freedom that it isn't a bad thing. I disagree. And the reason I disagree is that people assume that everyone will abuse these features, and that's not necessarily true. I'm against collective punishment.
I'm surprised there isn't yet a reply to this along the lines of "You drive a truck, ergo you're an asshole and a bully as a driver." I see that all the time, especially in the context of a conversation about driving etiquette.
I drive a full-size truck myself, and am a very polite driver. The nice thing about my truck is it forces people around me to be polite as well.
brakes.sys has caused a system error please hold start to reboot.
I guess is was inevitable,...
Was this submission proofread while driving? Or ever?
- Reading tweets/Facebook posts (and with a flick of the iDrive, it will read the tweet out to you)
- Posting one of five/six canned tweets/Facebook status messages (e.g., "It's xx outside, and I'm driving my BMW!") - so you aren't trying to compose a message while you drive
- Web radio
- Looking at your calendar/address book
- News RSS feeds
So it has the capacity to be dangerously distracting, but BMW's implementation is limited enough that it's not. Of course, the driver could still be distracted if they're reading Facebook while they're driving, but if they're going to do that, they would do that anyway with their smartphone in their hand.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I hope it would be appropriate to denote the observation that your comment presents a fine example of common ethnography.
To return to the common vernacular, however: Lyk, geez you mean they don't do it like us?
(cough cough lol and such)
I'm for personal responsibility, not necessarily for government stepping in beyond the limits of basic law, if to enforce a sense of political responsibility - I think that it sets a bad precedent for government, to say the least.
I find myself distracted at the original occurrence of the word, "Infotainment" however. What a shiny.....
Erm, to correct myself, I meant: If to enforce a sense of personal responsibility - though I'm afraid it only becomes political, at which point.
It seems I have a Freudian slip, at the matter. My apologies.
So explain to me why a passenger would need to have their smartphone in hand and have the application for it appear on the dash, rather than just looking at it in their hand, that doesn't involve the driver.
Because innovations like this can drive sales. ...and that, I think. is as far as it goes, honestly and in all candor.
How about, mind your own damn business until it actually affects you?
Because we have a reasonable expectation that it WILL affect us. With irrevocable consequences. You've already acknowledged that someone who "may have to pay for the consequences" should have a say in what is allowed behavior:
let them work out what they're allowed to do with their insurance company that may have to pay for the consequences
The potential consequence to the insurance company is a cash payout. The potential consequence to me is pain, death, or dismemberment. In both cases they are potential consequences. No one disputes that. But they are consequences that have happened before, and we have a reasonable expectation they will happen again.
Have you thought through the enforcement regime required to ensure people don't have "unapproved" applications loaded on their car computer? Are we talking an annual inspection of their data, or what, you must be a government approved vehicle computer system or application provider? Gee, the possibilities for abuse are just endless, aren't they?
What science fiction novel are you living in? Have you thought it through yourself? Drunk driving laws have been on the books for years and no one is clamoring for an Orwellian enforcement regime to ensure that people don't have "unapproved" beverages in their car. Police check behavior when looking for drunk drivers. No one inspects our cars annually for beer cozies, Jägermeister empties, or keg taps. We don't have breathalyzers attached to our ignitions unless we've already driven drunk. And rounding out the analogy, our alcohol providers -- retail stores and bars -- require government approval, with very little burden to the consumer.
Get a grip.
I used to drive a 1969 Dodge Dart with great gaping rust holes, a spider-web cracked windshield, and Bullwinkle the Moose painted on the hood in house paint. People took one look at that car, thought "He's got nothing to lose", and got the hell out of my way.
I live in Seattle, and the only non-polite drivers that I regularly encounter are in Escalades, Navigators, Hummers, and (for some reason) Mustangs. Even Beemer drivers, who tend to be assholes in real life, tend to be all right here.
I grew up in Michigan though, and anything smaller than an F150 would get pushed around there.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
In discussing governmental regulations in regards to such matters, I'm afraid that we overlook the angle on which the matter boils down to a concern of personal responsibility. Not to suggest that we should give up the ghost, but government truly cannot enforce such a thing. Community leaders may themselves be able to inspire sense of personal responsibility in a community - but only if the community leaders, themselves, represent personal responsibility themselves, and then only if it's understood as such.
Granted, there is the concern in regards to public safety, I understand, in the motivation of laws regulating such things as cel phone use on the roads. I can understand that, I simply wish to note that no regulation is a suitable substitute for plain sense of reason.
Had a woman on her phone blow through a stop sign just the other day and I nearly broadsided her. She had three kids in the car.
Okay, I will bite...
The OP showed that his reasons for driving a truck were pretty selfish (larger vehicle = more damage to environment and roadways), and misguided (safety rating of large vehicles tend to be worse than low fuel consumption compacts, such as the VW Golf, although this is changing).
I don't care how polite you say you are, if you drive a vehicle that is unnecessarily large and obstruct my view of the road ahead as a result (I am talking city driving here) then I will think of you accordingly. Oh, and coercing behaviour out of people isn't something I would equate with polite.
Not a lot of autos in the Wild Wild West. Giant fucking mechanical spiders, but not many autos.
The other 'point' is that car designers are cheap, and don't want to spend the extra couple hundred Euros to put a decent CPU/OS/Memory in their product. Slightly higher profits if they let the phone companies do the heavy lifting, they just have to provide an interface.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The Germans have a complete different mentality about driving that most Americans don't get. I got to visit a while ago for a week and when you're doing 200 kph you don't have time for a cell phone. The autobahn gently twists and turns unlike some American highways which you could write your biography if the car's aligned.
After spending a week on the road in germany recently, this makes absolute sense to me.
In germany I activated cruise control whenever possible, because I felt like I needed to keep my eyes on the road, I didn't want to look at my speed when I could be looking ahead or in my mirrors instead. On the autobahn the speeds are so fast (not just my speeds, but also the speeds of traffic around me) and lanes so narrow I was on a razor's edge the whole time, in the city the traffic and streets and pedestrians were tight enough to keep me similarly occupied.
There is no way I would drink a can of coke while driving in germany. No way.
Back home, I'm usually bored out of my mind while driving. Without something else to keep me occupied I'll probably fall asleep on the way home from work.
Saw a woman turning onto an on-ramp one morning with a cell phone and cigarette in one hand and a latte in the other. Not really sure how she was steering. The guy behind her was shaving, and the woman behind him was putting on makeup. Made me just want to turn around and go home.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Maybe the Germans can exhibit a bit of self control behind the wheel while driving?
I think it is more the fact that the USA is a much, much larger market than Germany. Cars are designed to sell, so they need to be built with things that will sell in their largest markets - currently China and the USA.
Apropos cupholders: on the E46 BMW (3-series cars circa 2002) there were cupholders on the American cars, but none in the German/European versions. That way they sold more cars in the USA, but didn't annoy people and lose sales in Germany The smartphone app ability may not be built in world-wide either.
The statistics only support it in studies where they force people to text or talk.
Do you really consider this "innovation"?? this is nothing more than putting shiny things in places where they will cause more harm than good.
While i agree that it will drive car sales, they really should be held accountable for what they are doing. Selling AR15s with full auto by default would increase gun sales but we don't let them do that.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
It's not ethnography, it's reality.
In germany the roads are narrow, the cars small, and you can be floating along at over 100mph in the "medium" speed lane with your door mirror literally inches away from a tractor trailer, while someone in the fast lane overtakes you at 160mph.
I think we should be careful to keep the matter in proportion.
My statement that it's innovative was presented, I should say, with a lot of tongue in cheek.
Though I understand there is the typical argument of "car becomes a weapon", but I notice that cars are not assault rifles. The matter of the driver's sense of personal responsibility remains the main basis of my argument.
...the main basis of my argument, which I did not fully present in that one comment, I notice. My apologies.
I have a full size truck AND a Suzuki Swift. I find that people are just as polite to the small cars as they are the big ones. I have also noticed that when riding as the passengers in friends cars, the people who were the loudest complainers about other drivers were also the most aggressive and dangerous.
Have you seen an car commercials over the last 30 years? It is a rare car that is advertised based on safe uses.
So what happens when federal and/or state lawmakers ban using cell phones for talking and texting all together while driving. Will these embeded smartphone type of displays need to be disabled by the manufacturer?
I fully agree - i think it's been a while since I've seen any advertisement that had anything to do with the product in a real world usage situation.
As far as i'm concerned the general population (at least in the US) has become ignorant and dependent on instant gratification.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
That person playing video games in his Lincoln Navigator is going to crush some poor innocent person in their Prius.
So it will weed out the idiots who buy small cars.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sometimes i think we shouldnt allow people to drive motorcycles on public roads. We force people to wear seat belts in steel cages yet motorcyclists can ride around with no protection at all?
Good-bye
in michigan the rule is, he has the most rust spots wins lane disputes
Good-bye
Darwin would've had a field day!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
They dont have a 'right' to demand it. They claim it by invoking monopoly on violence.
Good-bye
Well, I drove off a cliff anyway.
Filmed while driving and texting
When you're studying the effects of doing X, getting the subjects to do X is pretty much a prerequisite.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Making calls falls under "uses other than GPS", cretin.
Also, most cop cars carry cameras these days.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Perhaps it's time to revive the old idea of the spike on the steering wheel.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Don't forget the frequent Audi / BMW drivers that drive some 2 yards behind you and flashing their lights to encourage you to leave the fast lane. If you where only going 100 mph you might as well head over to the truck lane. Btw. this is considered dangerous driving in germany, caused many accidents, is illegal and happens to you about every 20 minutes of driving on the autobahn in light to medium traffic.
Except Volvos maybe (especially the "designed to save lives" campaign)
Have you thought through the enforcement regime required to ensure people don't have "unapproved" applications loaded on their car computer?
Yes, and it's called "what's worked for the past century: don't run apps on your dashboard at all". Wanna add a trip computer or GPS stats on there? Fine, I'm down with that. But there's no conceivable reason to add games to a dashboard as it does nothing whatsoever to provide better performance to the vehicle or the driver. Just because something is possible doesn't make it a good idea.
So you're saying we can't run apps ("don't run apps on your dashboard"), but we can run apps ("a trip computer or GPS stats on there? Fine"), implying either you haven't "thought through the enforcement regime required", or you have, but realize 'forbid users to execute their own code on their own computer' will be unpopular on /., where we still care about (certain) freedoms, and elected to sweep it under the rug. So, dense or dishonest... that's all I see.
Can't refute me, since GP's contradiction doesn't make sense without the assumption of stupidity or dishonesty?
No trouble, you can sure as hell mod me down. I love /.!
I think the modders were just waiting for you to post an argument with some kind of inherent logic and cohesion before bothering with a reply. The other guy took the time to address each of your points rationally, and we're waiting for you to the same, tough guy AC.
Community leaders may themselves be able to inspire sense of personal responsibility in a community
Like Oprah and immunization?
What kind of leaders do you have in mind? Politicians? Priests? I'm afraid the people most folks look up to for inspiration these days are talk show hosts, actors, singers and other celebrities. I have a hard time believing in "the plain sense of reason" in most people. This does in fact include myself at times. I knew it was wrong and maybe dangerous but still used the phone and performed other even more unsafe driving activities.
Still see regulations not as a substitute for common sense but as an incentive that raises the bar for unsafe behavior. Something like fear of causing accident plus fear of getting caught equals maybe the call isn't that important.
Why in the actual fuck would we have to jump the conclusion that people would use this to play games while driving? Is people playing games on their smartphones while driving already a major problem?
This is such a stupendously dangerous idea, bound to cause untold carnage, that we really need a Ralph Nader to start some class-action lawsuits so the idiots who come up with ideas like "in-car infotainment systems" can be driven to bankruptcy.
So... what? You're advocating seatbelts on a motorcycle? Yeah, I can see that being a big win. I have always wanted to have my motorcycle slide out from underneath me just to be dragged down the highway by several hundred pounds of metal and finally crushed against the center median by it. Believe me the last thing you want is to be strapped to a motorcycle!
As for safety gear... yeah. In terms of personal risk I think that motorcycles are a very different beast from cars. Riding a bike takes a level of concentration that cars just don't have, and require a significant acceptance of the risks involved. If a much larger vehicle hits you in a car, you've got a pretty decent chance to survive simply because there's so much of the car around you to protect you; crumple zones and such. On a motorcycle you don't have any of that and for reasons of weight and practicality you can't. As such you accept a certain amount of risk just by going out on your bike and once you've accepted that level of risk, whether you're wearing full gear or not really becomes a question of how much you want to shift the odds a little in favour of your survival. It doesn't matter how much gear you wear though, the odds will never be as high as they are in a car.
For the record, I am a motorcycle rider, and I do wear full gear. We also neighbour a state that doesn't require helmets yet I wear one all the time even when riding there. However, that's a choice I make.
But it changes the results. They know they are part of a study, and they know they have to try to text in situations where they might not normally try to. And the study data is not borne out in actual real life accident statistics, as far as I've ever heard. Accident rates are still going down, and they don't correlate with increased phone usage, or with cell phone bans. If there is NTSB data that says otherwise, I'll gladly stand corrected.
This solution seems to imply that all Androids and Blackberries can actually export their screen using VNC, even to displays of different resolution than their own.
Can they, out of the box?
Joe Avg. Upmarket BMW Buyer does not seem the most likely tinkerer to root his phone (or even delve into e.g. Google Play's lengthy ToS to download an app from there).
This should really be banned as it soo risky, people are gonna use it for putting up latest newsitems etc., and no people aren't responsible enough to not use it.. Put a high sentence on it when people where using it and creating an accident.. I already see people watching movies during driving and moving from lane to lane due to it, you really just hope they drive themselves into a lamppost and die..
Can't decide if I agree or disagree. We are generally in the same insurance pools, it will generally save us money (and cut down on the societal awfulness of car crash deaths) if more people wore seat belts.
On the other hand, in the grand scheme of causes-and-numbers-of-death, it's just not that big a deal. The simple act of driving the car instead of walking, biking, or even just standing on a subway or bus (just plain sitting turns out to be bad for us) kills more people by far. One estimate of the risks and rewards of bicycling (crashes, vs health benefits) was 20 years of life gained for each year of life lost. Given that bicycles offer little protection from crashes other than their low speed, this suggests that lack of exercise is really bad for you, and that driving cars to excess is one reason for this lack. Another study found a 28% lower mortality rate for bicycle commuters even after adjusting for other cardiovascular risk factors.
Probably the best plan for saving lives would be mandatory helmet laws for car drivers and passengers. Head injuries from car crashes are a significant cause of death and disability, so this is not an outlandish thing to do. Australian researchers have even developed a prototype helmet for just this purpose that is less expensive and less cumbersome than your average motorcycle helmet. What makes this plan "best" is not that it is necessarily super-effective at reducing car deaths, but that encouraging just a fraction of car drivers to use some healthier form of transit will save many lives through their improved cardiovascular health (if we believe the 20:1 figure for bicycling rewards:risks, and assume that bicycles and cars have the same risk of crash death, diverting 5% to cycling would save about as many lives as are lost to car crashes in total. Similar ratios probably also apply for walking).
And yeah, I know this is an inflammatory proposal, that's why I included all the links to back up my argument.
No what im saying is that if the government feels that its important enough to legislate me having to wear a seatbelt in a steel cage, perhaps we should outlaw motorcycles. Why is it ok to outlaw me riding unfettered in a car, but you have no safety AT ALL? Its illogical.
Good-bye
We DON'T hold people responsible. Once upon a time, we did. Nowadays, you can "lose control" and escape prosecution, even when your mistake kills people.
And speaking as someone who was once left unconscious in a ditch by a hit-and-run driver, it HAS affected me. Given personal experience with this alleged "responsibility", I find that talk is cheap -- when responsibility matters, it is often lacking.
You speak of this "personal responsibility" as if it exists in fact, instead of as a talking point.
The world is filled with bad drivers who think they are "better than average", which leads to unintentional irresponsibility, and when bad things happen, the reaction is often to blame the victim instead of their own overoptimistic selves.
I use the truck and accessories, as I said, for their intended purposes, and noted that the accessories also have a useful side effect.
Some people actually haul things (welders, metal, compressed gas cylinders, auto parts, construction materials, and household waste to the recycling center in my case) and have ample use for their trucks. I drove them long before it was fashionable.
Lift gates make loading and unloading large, heavy things much safer and easier. They are a wise purchase new or used and much cheaper than back surgery!
http://www.tommygate.com/
As far as "coercion", I'm polite, but I expect and demand not to be fucked with and understand that humans react usefully to some stimuli. They are what they are.
I can be driving a same-sized vehicle that's pristine and be cut off blithely by various fuckwads while I'm given wide birth in my other trucks. Working at a used car lot gave me plenty of varied driving experience...
My OTHER truck is a C-30 crew cab wrecker whose front bumper is an eight-inch steel I-beam with a horizontal section of railroad rail welded across it as a counterweight to the wheel-lift wrecker apparatus in back. I don't do repos myself (though I've helped buds who used their wreckers) but heads do turn if anything looking like a repo truck goes by. People get out of your way quite smartly.
I don't cut off others. I'm also a motorcyclist and very aware of the rules of the road.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"I used to drive a 1969 Dodge Dart with great gaping rust holes, a spider-web cracked windshield, and Bullwinkle the Moose painted on the hood in house paint."
Excellent!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Again I guess it depends a lot on your perspective. On a motorcycle the goal is avoidance; avoidance of collisions and situations in which a collision may happen. Motorcycles are far more maneuverable than a car and thus a well trained rider (which SHOULD be most, but I will concede probably isn't) should be able to avoid most problems. I know that in about a decade of riding I have had some minor accidents but that two of them were the result of me avoiding a potentially more hazardous situation (car lost control in front of me and would've flattened me had I not ridden into a field next to the road for example... my accident was only because I lost control of the bike on the ploughed ground).
In a car, accidents are about survivability. That means making use of safety features and as such I am not averse to legislation of seat belts. Also plainly put have you watched what happens when someone slams on the brakes in a car as opposed to a motorcycle? The very way a bike is shaped means that a sudden stop only throws you an inch or so forward. Sudden brake application even in the cheapest cars can throw you into the steering wheel potentially causing a loss of control. Even a slight tip of the back end of a car can send it into a spin that can throw the occupants all over the place and thus causing another loss of control. Simply because of mass, the risk of collateral damage of that situation is significantly increased.
Seat belts are more about the driver maintaining control of their vehicle in a difficult situation. At least to the extent that it's possible.
i refuse to use my phone for anything while driving, hands-free headset or otherwise. my boss doesn't like it, but i don't give him the choice.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Does your state have a helmet law for automobile drivers and passengers?
coercing behaviour out of people
Like a semi (maybe lorry would be better, considering your spelling) driver who is following the laws and driving politely and non-aggressively is coercing the drivers around him to not do (as many) stupid things while in close proximity to a vehicle weighing many tons?
If that's your definition of coercion, then yes. I was simply making an observation about certain assumptions many people seem to jump directly to without considering any of a myriad other possibilities. (It should be obvious this is speaking of the first paragraph of the post, not the second, but this is slashdot after all)
You actually illustrated the behavior I was referring to quite clearly in your post, even if that wasn't actually what you meant. Your post can easily be read as if you view everyone who drives a full-size truck in a city as having absolutely no business doing so and does so only to intimidate others, whether or not that's a view you hold. In fact, given how you prefaced the statement (as it doesn't relate to anything the OP wrote), it could easily be read as if you specifically believe that about me without having even the slightest knowledge of the actual reasons I have a full-size pickup from which to draw conclusions.