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."

Comments

Re: First

[BitZtream]

If you dick with your phone while driving you deserve to lose your driving privilege. Don't punish passengers, nor drivers who use passengers as navcom.

The actions of the many often outweight the actions of the few. The problem is that 99.9% of the population are less safe because of cell phone distractions.

I'm not one of those people, I don't use my phone while driving. I often use it as a passenger as you've described, as does my wife. However, you, my wife, and I using it safely ... and all of slashdot too for that matter ... does not make a big enough dent statistically to even mention, so while I shouldn't have to give up my freedom to use it properly ... its impractical and ignorant to pretend you're going to solve this any other way. To top it off, it really isn't that important that you be able to use your phone while the car is moving. You will survive, just like everyone else did before cell phones existed.