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NHTSA and DOT Want Your Car To Be Able To Disable Your Cellphone Functions
savuporo writes "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Department of Transportation are considering technological solutions for people to stop using their cellphones while driving. Proximity detectors or requiring physical link with the car are the solutions under the scope. From the article: 'NHTSA wants automakers to make it impossible to enter text for messaging and internet browsing while the car is in motion, disable any kind of video functionality and prevent text-based information such as social media content or text messages from being displayed.' Obviously these regulations would need to go beyond cellphones, as laptop, tablet or any other gadget with a 3G data connection or even on a wi-fi hotspot made by your phone would be equally distracting."
passenger - do you want to restrict them, too?
This will happen right after all major platforms are rendered unable to pirate content or run an alternative OS.
Cell phones more often than not come with GPS. GPS is used primarily in cars. Reasonable implementations of GPS uses a data connection to get map data on an as-needed basis. A data connection can be used to make phone calls. I.e. the only way to forbid cell phones while driving is to end net neutrality.
Then there's still the bit where passengers might want to make phone calls or stream video. Either you disable those too (for no reason whatsoever) or the driver will be able to use their phone.
Long story short, good luck with that.
But your is under the impression it is still moving, you are trapped and cant call for help
So how would this proposed system distinguish between the driver using a phone and a passenger using a phone? It's not reasonable to forbid every passenger (who's not driving and has no need to not be distracted) from using any device while someone else is driving.
And I don't mean NHTSA or DOT here, I mean We, The People.
The messed up part is not that they are doing this ... it's that we are so freaking stupid and selfish that they have to do this.
No one driving their own car is so important that they even need to take phone calls while driving, let alone texts or other crap. People who are that important have drivers and assistants.
Its very sad that we've gotten ourselves as a country to be so oblivious to the world around us that the government has to step in and come up with ways to keep us from being morons when we step into a deadly weapon.
You can debate gun laws since the injuries caused by guns and nut jobs are relatively few and far between, so its at least worth discussing both sides of the equation. Even in America, and its craziest gun tote'n parts (which I've lived in), few people carry guns daily. On the other hand, everyone drives, and almost everyone texts/talks while driving, which is WAY more dangerous. Just look at the energy ratio alone! Most gun owners are not nutjobs ... drivers on the other hand seem to think its part of the requirements for the job.
I would like to stand up and yell that this is a ridiculous invasion of my personal space. It is a ridiculous invasion of my personal space.
Unfortunately, I have to side with NHTSA since I'd rather have my personal space invaded by a law than I would have it invaded by someone's ton and a half SUV because they were texting some cat picture instead of driving.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
They're doing it all wrong. You can't solve a social problem with technological features.
There's no way you can make a car that will stop someone from tapping on their ipad, or putting on their makeup.
If you try, they'll just get pissed off, disable the feature, and do it even more to spite you.
The solution is to fix the culture to make it socially unacceptable.
Have the law enforcement officers doing their job.
Jail time for any driver caught texting while in motion.
It's 2014. You enter your car. Your watch stops -- it poses too much of a distraction. Mandatory reaction time enhancing drugs are automatically injected into your blood as you turn the ignition.
The car revs once, but doesn't move. A breathalyzer test is administered automatically by the car, followed by a urine test and a routine vision screening. Small electrical signals are passed through the chair to test your reflexes while a brain scan is run to check for any impure thoughts or intentions.
Finally, drive mode is unlocked. Your maximum speed is set by your insurance provider -- a leisurely 10mph. An artificial intelligence watches you drive your car via. video link to monitor your driving patterns. Your cellphone is disabled.
Time to hit the open road.
If I were a cop, I'd be happy to use this tech to stop everyone from talking about or recording me assault people. Imagine how useful this technology would be to dictators. Well done Obama. Not only have you just created a data trove for organized crime to blackmail every US citizen, you are about to create the technology that helps dictators repress rebels.
I think getting everyone a personal Chauffeur is the answer. Fixes the unemployment problem and the cell phone problem. Well other then the chauffeur texting but that's easily solved with electric shocks.
Keep voting Democrat, folks. They will regulate us to death and tax us into the poor house to staff all the new agencies they create to tell us how to live our lives.
I will allow MY car and MY phone to prohibit ME from doing something right after those of us with guns allow the feds to have the gun "disable" itself when outside a "hunting zone/rifle range". Yup... any day now.
can you still call 911 if your phone gets disabled and you're involved in some sort of accident (or you witness one)?
I guess I'll keep driving and maintaining my existing cars until I die.
(And for the record: I'm OK with this; my cars suit me perfectly.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Fuck you.
Step 1: Phone user puts phone on roof while putting other stuff in the car.
Step 2: Phone user forgets about phone and reverses out.
Step 3: The reversing car disables the phone that slides off the roof into the path of the wheels.
OK, so it's a surprisingly common and hilarious failure mode for laptops but I'm sure some phones have also died that way even though they usually live in pockets.
this wouldn't be needed if you drivers didn't think that the laws applied only to other people.
It can detect fingermovements... sms prob solved ...
Could also detect raised middlefinger, a seizure, a fight in the car, driver falling asleep
RING RING! Clue calling. Do you understand now?
This place is getting really depressing when you have to explain every little thing as if it's to a three year old.
How about mandating an opaque, soundproof privacy screen between the front and back seats. I see way more people being distracted by their kids than their phones. At least if they're yacking on the phone they're looking where they're going.
Want? It's not a question of "want". It's a question of safety, expediency and convenience.
Why, next time I stuff someone in the trunk of my car I won't even have to find and take their phones. Just think how much time and hassle this would save.
I don't understand why people aren't buying these cars! Sure, youtube's front page has three different videos mocking the CEOs and politicians and administration officials responsible for these cars that disable people's cell phones as they drive past, but surely the public will tire of them soon. In the meantime, what am I supposed to say at the next stockholder's meeting?!
they want to sell in car phones and entertainment systems.
disable all tablets, smartphones etc in car-> you have to buy bolted in tablets from the car manufacturer.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Not.
A.
Technology.
Problem.
Make using a mobile phone punishable by confiscating the car immediately (as it is in the UK for driving uninsured) and a mandatory appearance in court, punishment being revocation of license.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Most police patrol cars have multiple displays for the driver to easily read information (radar gun displaying speed of oncoming vehicles, license plate scanner scrolling information about the registration status of nearby cars, laptop, etc). If *my* car is going to be required to block any distractions while I am driving, then surely the public safety officers need to be similarly coddled and babysat.
This is a stupid idea.
I'm an individual! Just like everyone else!
Just last week, a woman was driving next to me and, I kid you not, was writing in a notebook on here steering wheel. Just fine these people into oblivion and remove their licences.
The root cause of this problem is that car drivers do not feel compelled to leave their phones alone while driving.
Unless you change this mindset, any artificial technological means of compulsion will only be despised, circumvented and rendered useless while incurring additional unnecesary costs as well as greatly inconveniencing non-drivers.
The key here is that drivers call/text while driving for convenience - they want to transmit a message NOW to save time rather than wait until the car stops rolling. To address this problem, they should make the consequences of making that call/sending that message even more inconvenient than doing so. One way would perhaps be hefty well-enforced penalties such as loss of licence to drive, suspension of right to reapply for a licence for 3 years or more, imprisonment for all cases involving accidents... you get the idea. If it seeps into popular culture that using phones while driving = loss of driving rights, the problem ought to decrease over time.
I'm not advocating fines because they don't work. It's also useless passing such laws if they're not enforced.
I also favor the immediate suspension of the right to drive upon arrest (not conviction) until the case is decided. This huge inconvenience alone will make people sit up and pay attention.
Are these extreme? Yes, but its preferable to having your family members die on the road because some sexting driver was careless and watching his lawyer walk him off with a "It was an unfortunate accident, he didn't mean it, nobody was to blame" defence.
If you're driving and you "need" to be contactable - then give your phone to a passenger and they can handle your calls for you.
As they're in the car with you then they can see what you're doing and so distract you less while keeping the caller occupied.
My car lost breaks and electronic speed doesn't go down or shut off (already happened to a woman with a Toyota). How would this person call 911?
...want to know where you go, and with whom.
Near the end TFA suggests detecting when the driver is using the phone but not the passenger. Just brilliant, now we'll have drivers leaning into the passenger seat texting.
Only communists/terrorists don't text or surf while in a car.
What could possibly go wrong?
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
You are a fucking passenger?
Fuck these Nazis
I am using linux on my computer, now, I want to have a free car.
If that would go that way, an executive with private driver would not be able to work on Laptop and/or conduct phone calls.......
The first time some drunk driver doesn't get reported because nobody on the road can call 911, the blood will be on the bureaucrat's hands.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's f'd up that I should be prevented from making choices about my driving. We're the saftest we have ever been and yet- we need MORE laws?
No. I want my freedom back. I want more people to die.
I wish I had the opertunity to expereince freedom. Unfortunately I was born in the mid-80s and I have no memory of it.
It's a good idea for drivers (driven lately) but what about passengers looking on a map or confirming appointment times?
Yet police have a computer running a plate scanner (and god knows what else) and a radio they use in motion. On top of this they feel free to use their cellphones because they've had intense training to make doing so safe! No really, believe it!
Nah, you can keep your filthy NWO hands off my fucking property. Our servants who think like that will hopefully be lined up on a wall someday post tribunal judgement. Sick of this damn nanny state crap on top of the police state.
Why not invent something which can be put in a room, theater, car, whatever that continuously broadcasts a "hint" for devices to put themselves into silent mode?
Designed properly, this could be quite useful, e.g. in a lecture theatre, when somebody is trying to teach a class. You could do stuff like have IM clients automatically put themselves into DND mode or similiar.
Have the phone interact with the car so that it is used to activate the starting mechanism. While the car is running the phone is blocked from use except for handsfree calling. You get in, open an app, start the car, and drive off. Sure, you can have 2 phones or use a passengers but realistically most folks won't.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
And if you unlatch a seatbelt while moving, the car automatically disables itself and the police are called.
Come on people everyone can see this is a funded effort by car companies to force you to use their in-dash 'entertainment consoles' at a mere $3,000 plus $39.95 a month.......for safety's sake.
How about instead of idiotic rube-goldberg contraptions that depend on people buying specific model years of cars and specific types of phones to go with them and are guaranteed to be jailbroken the day they're released to the public - we just dump that wasted money into self-driving cars? There's no reason that people need to be in control of 3 tons of hurtling death when computers can do the job just as well. When the LIDAR detects a non-automated vehicle in proximity it can mantain a safe distance (and warn surrounding vehicles so cross-streets aren't approached when they might run a stop, etc).
Or, you know, we could put up with nanny state nonsense and continue to sacrifice huge chunks of our day to the commute god.
I need to know where the closest hospital is, but I can't use the data connection while driving. Guess turn-by-turn directions aren't going to happen now!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
While you can't talk, the government can spy on your in-car conversation through your cellphone.
people should not be able to unscrew a bottle in a car .. ever!
If driver distraction is the rationale, we have to get rid of all roadside advertising as well.
Not that I'd mind particularly...
Maybe a better solution would be to have cell phones disable cars...
Or will there be some sort of "Morality Switch" that will ensure only GOOD people can fire guns?
They're going about it all wrong. They should be pushing for self-driving cars to become a reality. The the "driver" is a machine and is never distracted, and the people in the car can be doing whatever they want while the car is "driving".
I must ask, why do you NEED an internet connection in your car?
The moment a question is started with "Why do you need", it is presumed to be political. As a political question that deals with an individual's desire for whatever equipment and/or service, the rejoinder should be those classic twenty-four words:
"A well-regulated Militia being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"
Remember, to the police state, everything is a weapon. Those twenty-four words are responsible for many people coming to the USA and many native-born from leaving.
These type of recommendations for mandatory restrictions are short sighted and over controlling. Perhaps they need to ban drive through windows at Fast food first since eating while driving is equally a distraction. Or maybe ban the rear view mirror so people don't get distracted looking at themselves of applying makeup. Or perhaps require the passengers be sealed off from the driver so kids can't distract the driver with "Susie is on my side of the seat, make her stop!" These things also cause accidents. Focusing on one cause of distracted driving is extremely short sighted.
Cutting out communication would prevent emergency contact as well. What if your child was injured and the hospital tried to contact you? What if they tried to contact the surgeon, but could not because he was driving in the car? What if there was a tornado alert text and your text messaging was blocked because you were driving?
What if someone developed a system to avoid crashes using wireless phones such as proximity sensing, traffic flow prediction, accelerometers? Already my phone can route me around accidents or construction automatically which reduces congestion and improves the safety of workers. Such things could not be developed with physical restrictions in place.
The industry is already working on assisting technologies that help keep the driver on the road. There are lane sensors to ensure you stay in your lane. There are fatigue sensors to help you keep your eyes on the road. there are proximity sensors to aid in blind spot detection. This is the direction that we should be going. Restricting technology as being suggested is wrong.
Like drunk driving. I don't know about where y'all are, but driving drunk is a step above child molestation where I am.
It's just right now, lots of people are doing it, so there's a safety in a herd.
Yes, accept that the same rules (no problems if income is large, if political power is great) that apply to DD apply to "driving-while-texting,"
Ack!
"disable any kind of video functionality"
In other words, the government doesn't want you recording police or other federal agents abusing their power.
I vote we simply let people use their phones as much as they want while driving, and let natural selection take care of those that do it unsafely.
Dunno about you guys, but I do use my phone while driving, but do so in a responsible manner. I have it in a mount on my dash so I can use it for GPS navigation, MP3/music playing to my stereo, and hands-free calling. Worst-case scenario, I might shoot a quick text to someone while stopped at a light.
I'm honestly more distracted if there is another person in the car, or if I'm eating/drinking while driving, but I have yet to hear anyone tell me I can't do any of those while behind the wheel.
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
i reserve the right to not pay attention in numerous other ways when this technology goes into effect.
There are a lot of good reasons to keep phones enabled - from safety, to passenger entertainment, to providing directions and information, and human connection. As part of the /. community we should be looking at advancing the self-driven or automated car to remove the need for these technology hacks. Let's use our design and development resources to make transportations easier, faster, and more efficient and use our electronic devices to further progress, enable connection and communication, and make us more efficient during these wasted times of travel.
Wimp. Start out with hamburgers, add the soda and fries once you've got that down, and you'll be juggling chainsaws on the Interstate in no time!
If we can get LEOs to pay attention to people gabbing/texting on their phones, then half the battle is won! On EVERY commute I make to or from work, I get caught behind someone who is talking or staring at their phone about twice. They tend to lay off the accelerator and weave about in their lane. I confirm this when I get out from behind them and pass them.
The simple tech is a box of rubber gloves in the LEO's vehicle. If you are caught using your phone in any way (other than hands free), they pull you over, have you exit the vehicle, don the gloves and shove the phone up your arse.
Brilliant...
So instead of being merely distracted by sending a txt, the idiots will be REALLY distracted trying to circumvent the restrictions to send a txt...
Marked as funny, but actually no, it doesn't really.
I've dealt with co-workers who had hygiene issues. It wasn't a matter of deodorant, it was a matter of taking a freaking shower. Deodorant means that stinky co-worker comes to the office and then fills the area with the smell of BO and musky/minty/etc deodorant. Either the deodorant has to be so strong it overpowers the BO, making it an irritation in its own right, or it'll just mingle.
The solution was for said co-worker to either shower in the morning before work, or at least at night before bed after working in the shop and/or yard (and in the case of at least one, I know this wasn't happening).
I imagine that if this proposal comes to pass the adoption rate of self-driving cars will be accelerated.
The answer is no.
I will not be prevented from receiving an emergency call from my kids, or from making an emergency call in case there is an accident, etc. etc.
Just one question to consider:
If one of children is abducted, manages to hit the "panic" button on their phone while in the kidnapper's car, but the call (either to 911 or to another designated number) is blocked by this feature, who will be legally liable?
If it's the people who passed that law, then I'm all for it.
If it's the car manufacturer, I'd like to see the fallout.
I call shenanigans! This is key jingling. The NHTSA is not entirely staffed with people who have never been in a car with a passenger before. They are not idiots. They know this is a stupid, unworkable idea. I submit that this is key jingling to distract us from the surveillance leak.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
What we really need is a committee of reasonable, well adjusted, intelligent and WELL PAID people to review all the stupid ideas every government department comes up with and reject most of them. The only money you get to spend is the time required to submit your idea to the "stupid idea review committee" and not a dime more unless they agree that your idea has merit.
Anyone found lobbying the "stupid idea committee" is shot by firing squad in a public ceremony.
We would save billions.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
'NHTSA wants automakers to make it impossible to enter text for messaging and internet browsing while the car is in motion, disable any kind of video functionality and prevent text-based information such as social media content or text messages from being displayed.
What about aftermarket dash mounted GPS units? Using this logic, seems to me that a dashmounted GPS would present the same potential for distraction.
This passes, and pizza delivery drivers will be unable to do their jobs as many rely upon GPS navigation. No video? No display on screen? GPS on the phone just became useless for them.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
How many of you have received a check from the insurance company to replace a vehicle that was totaled as a direct result of phone use? I have. Trust me...hanging upside down, covered in broken glass, does not make for a fun afternoon.
You cannot multitask nearly as well as you think you can. You might want to look out the windows once in a while, rather than looking at the phone. Unlike the bimbo that t-boned me.
If you self-important phone users would just put the goddamn phone down and actually drive the car, we wouldn't need initiatives like this.
Where I live, my commute is ~25 miles one way to work. ( Which rules out biking / walking )
Where I live, mass transit is non existent.
Thus
My need for a vehicle far outweighs my need for the holy grail of surveillance ( otherwise known
as a smartphone ). The solution is quite simple really, get rid of the phone.
Us old-timers who knew life before internet and smartphones can likely do it far more easily :D
than the current generations who wouldn't know what to do without them.
Tell me it's surely not possible to abuse this for attacks on people? Like the recent news of criminals being able to unlock cars from the passenger side. The criminal just brings along a tool that tells the cell phone to be quiet while they beat you senseless.
If such measures were enacted I'm sure they would apply to our elected officials as they move about in their cars and limos as well. Politicians would conform to not having use of their phones and portable data as they transit between locations.
I'm sure.
.
Why have self-driving vehicles not entered into this conversation yet?
The solution IS technical. If the "driver" isn't driving anyway, who cares what they're doing?
Provide the ability to send and receive hands-free texts.
Howe about you grow up and stop pretending that you are so important that everyone else in the world should be honored for the privileged of sacrificing themselves for your delusions of adequacy. I know your mommie always used to tell you you were special, but the truth is that you are just another self absorbed idiot that refuses to even pretend that he has the ability to act like a responsible adult, and then expects everyone else to willfully suffer the consequences.
That is a fucking good idea... lawl.
It is a violation of Federal Law to block phone communications. Full Stop. Aside from the many legitimate uses (passengers as has been pointed out), if someone is in a moving vehicle and in danger, say kidnapped, or trapped with a domestic abuser how do they call for help? If someone is actively being chased while driving by some psychotic they can't exactly wait to pull over and turn off their engine to call 911 (I have personally experience this, except back then we didn't have cell-phones, luckily my driving was better and I lost the psycho). At the end of the day the cell-phone in the car problem is no different from having an active conversation with other passengers or driving while being sleep-deprived (anecdotally I've never hit anyone since I've had my cell-phone, but the handful of times I've rear-ended someone was when in deep-conversation with a passenger in the car).
Common sense and hands-free technological advancement (as well as the self-driven vehicle) will catch up to this problem.
is a federal law (supersedes all state laws) that forbids the driver from talking or texting on a phone while the car is in motion. Give them a $5000 fine if caught, and any state, county or city that does not strictly enforce this law loses any federal funding, grants etc... of any kind for 2 years or until they can prove strict enforcement.
that doesn't mean anything.
How about we stop this silliness by government employees by finding out who had a hand in this idiotic trial policy and fire the employees involved.
I don't disagree that, in the short term, we should at least have the conversation about ways to keep people from getting distracted by technology while driving. However, I think that within 10 years we will have significant self-driving vehicle advancements that start to make this issue moot. It won't be overnight, but I think this problem may solve itself.
What about passengers? What about emergencies? How far does this tyrannical nanny-state bullcrap have to go before people say "enough is enough already!!!" Big Government, leave us the hell ALONE!!!!!
wow, slashdot always gets eyeballs with this-type-stuff. Well done.
Help your brother not get a speeding ticket.
This is clearly intended to help drivers avoid having to open those big folding maps that the NHTSA has never even attempted to control or ban, like they should.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Sexy blondes on the sidewalk distract me more than my phone while driving...
I hope the government doesn't start banning sexy girls from the street, that would be terrible for mankind.
5 minutes after whatever is installed to stop this there will be a way to undo it online. 3 weeks later it will be sold on ebay as a kit.
and it will likely cause more fiddling then if it were not there in the first place causing more distraction.
We can all see where this is going.
All pretty girls will be required to have darkly tinted windows so they won't distract male drivers who might take their focus off the road when passing.
People driving convertibles will be required to conform to a dress code if the top is down or they will get a ticket.
Children under the age of 10 won't be allowed in cars unless their mouth's are taped shut as they might distract the parents driving.
The Department of Correct Political Thought and Speech (Otherwise known as the DHS) will be empowered to hire five million loyal SEIU workers to setup check points at ten mile intervals on all Interstates to verify compliance and check papers. Since China won't loan us the 500 trillion million dollars to pay for this every year, travel will simply be restricted "to keep us all safe"
Murphy was an optimist