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

First

[thsths]

passenger - do you want to restrict them, too?

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you differentiate and only disable the driver's phone, how do you stop the drivers borrowing a passenger's phone? There isn't a technological solution to this, only legal ones (which already exist).

Re:First

[spire3661]

Beyond even that, what if im using my cellphone as a hotspot to provide the electronics in my car an internet connection? This is incredibly short sighted.

Re:First

[BitZtream]

In Principal, No.

In Practice, Yes.

It is worth restricting passengers in order to take out drivers. I would rather not be able to text as a passenger than worry about getting ran over by some 16 year old in Moms ton and a half SUV because 'OMFG Becky is not even hot'

What I want is for people to not fuck with their phones (or anything else!) while driving. Since that isn't something that people seem to be doing, and I care more about not getting ran over and killed by some ignorant jackass who's selfish ass thinks he can drive while staring down at his phone. In order to prevent that, I am MORE THAN WILLING to not use my phone as a passenger.

I don't really want to have hard restrictions imposed on the driver, but apparently we as Americans are too stupid to know that driving is dangerous and requires attention, so we have to impose such stupid restrictions on them. If theres some collateral damage, so be it.

I have to be alive for any of this to matter, so I'll take not getting ran over as my first choice. People did live before cell phones and gadgets, even took long trips and played games that actually helped the driver pay attention to the road at that!

As somone below pointed out the hot spot for your cars internet connection, again I must ask, why do you NEED an internet connection in your car? You don't. I have one, its cool as shit, my radio even runs Android so it has apps! I know not to try and dick with any of it when driving. Other people don't seem to be that intelligent, and telling them why its unsafe doesn't seem to be working.

Pissing off a few geeks is worth it.

Re:First

[mwvdlee]

How exactly does one distinguish between HTTP traffic of social media or messaging protocols and "allowed" traffic if those protocols may change or new ones can be invented at any minute?

Re:First

[mjwx]

passenger - do you want to restrict them, too?

Passengers know when to shut up.

People on the other side of the phone dont.

Re:First

[sosume]

Are you ready for a government owned black box in your car which measures your speed and location, taps into your cell phone, monitors your private messages and internet behaviour? Probably illegal to tamper with, all in the interest of the children?

Re:First

[Cenan]

I absolutely agree, but the focus on phones has got to go. We are not trying to ban the use of phones in cars, we are trying to get the driver to pay attention to driving, and phones (right now) seem to be the biggest culprit. Banning phones in cars still leaves a million - 1 ways to distract a driver.

Rather than try to restrict the near endless possibilities for distraction, we need technology to ensure a driver's attention on the road. For instance, my phone (S3G) has a rather cool feature called Smart Stay; it basically uses the front camera to detect if I'm still looking at the screen, to help decide if the screen should lock.

This feature could be made to work for cars as well, detecting where the driver has his/her attention and (akin to seat belts) make an annoying sound, throttle the engine or whatever else seems to be an appropriate for a driver not paying attention. Obviously work needs to be done, but the general idea is there.

Re:First

[Chrisq]

passenger - do you want to restrict them, too?

Passengers know when to shut up. People on the other side of the phone dont.

So you wouldn't restrict playing with your passenger's buttons when driving.

Re:First

[adolf]

Not if you're a service tech at a modern car dealer: For some makes, having the car have an Internet connection (to communicate with the manufacturer) is a currently useful diagnostic aid during a test drive when attempting to sort out driveability issues.

Re:First

[AaronW]

Not necessarily. For example, my car (Tesla model S) has an always-on 3G Internet connection. It is used for streaming music, maps and Internet (it does not disable the browser while driving). There is talk of charging money for the Internet connection once the WIFI feature is enabled or else allow teathering with a cell phone to provide the connection. The Internet connection is also used to improve voice recognition and for other services. The Internet connection is not just used for browsing or chat/email.

Then there's also the case where a passenger might want to use the Internet on a laptop.

Re:First

[MichaelSmith]

Maybe this could be used as punishment for drivers who are caught using phones? There have been proposals for breath testing systems to be fitted to cars which are owned by people convicted of DUI offences. Similarly, if you get caught with a phone, phones will no longer work in your car.

Re:First

[stephanruby]

passenger - do you want to restrict them, too?

The Prius does indeed restrict the front seating passenger from using most of its center panel functions when the car is moving, which is really idiotic because it's smart enough to know there is a passenger in the seat (since it will complain loudly when that same passenger doesn't put his seat belt on).

Re:First

[julesh]

Pissing off a few geeks is worth it.

The problem they'll find is that it isn't really the geeks that'll be pissed off by this. This almost certainly won't apply to public transport (including, I would suspect, licensed public service taxis), so other than people who are actually driving (and therefore perhaps should be restricted from using their phones while the vehicle is in motion) it is the passengers in private vehicles who are most likely to be effected. Who are the people who are frequently passengers in private vehicles and who make above-average use of mobile phones? There are a couple of classes that spring to mind:

1. Business leaders (the kind who can pay for a chauffeur)
2. Politicians (the kind who can convince the state to pay for a chauffeur for them, usually on the premise that it leaves them free to attend to important business while in transit)

This, therefore, is not going to happen.

Re:First

[julesh]

I think he meant to ask whether passengers be restricted from using their phones, not whether they shouldn't be allowed to talk to the driver. Although...

Re: First

[MichaelSmith]

Its clear, even from the summary, that the authorities want to disable specific functions on the phone so that calls to emergency services will still work.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you ready for a government owned black box in your car which measures your speed and location, taps into your cell phone, monitors your private messages and internet behaviour?

That's called a "smartphone"...

Re:First

[FPhlyer]

I use my phone's hotspot function to provide internet access for my kid's Android tablets and Nintendo DSi devices during long duration trips. Disabling all internet access would be a huge bummer resulting in even more "are we there yet?" situations then I already get. I also frequently stream music from my phone through my car's built-in stereo bluetooth. While we all want to save lives the reality is that "distracted driving" is caused not by technology but by human nature. Take away the tech and we'll just find some other distraction. Driving a car is so "second nature" in American culture that most of don't apply the level of concentration to the task that we should. Ever drive while juggling a hamburger and a soda?

My personal worst offense was over a decade ago when I pulled out my laptop and played a game of Quake 2 while "driving." In my defense, I was stuck behind an accident in a construction zone where traffic moved MAYBE three full meters during that two hour wait. Other drivers were out of their cars walking around so it seamed like a safe bet to pass the time with a distraction rather than get upset at the situation.

Re:First

[stenvar]

What I want is for people to not fuck with their phones (or anything else!) while driving ... Other people don't seem to be that intelligent, and telling them why its unsafe doesn't seem to be working.

What I want is for people not to be arrogant pricks like you; that ain't gonna happen any time soon either.

Re: First

[ArsenneLupin]

Or even, without freak occurences such as stuck accelerators: if you get into a normal accident, and the crash jostles the sensor that says "car in motion" in such a way that it thinks it is still in motion, neither you nor any bystander will be able to call 911 due to that jammer.

Re:First

[Belial6]

I must ask, why do you NEED an internet connection in your car?

Because I am a good father. The internet connection in the car allowed me to take a six week road trip with my wife and son. A trip that simply could not have happened if I couldn't have worked during the drive time between stops. The trip was both educational and an amazing bonding experience.

Re:First

[ArsenneLupin]

Pissing off a few geeks is worth it.

You Sir are one of the reasons I think the Second Amendment is worth keeping

Re:First

[Belial6]

Passengers know when to shut up.

No. They don't.

Re:First

[ArsenneLupin]

2. Politicians (the kind who can convince the state to pay for a chauffeur for them, usually on the premise that it leaves them free to attend to important business while in transit)

Nah, they'll just vote an exemption for themselves

Re:First

[BitZtream]

Really? So you think the general population ... most of which are using their cell phones while driving are smart enough to make intelligent decisions themselves ... even though the whole reason this is being brought up is due to the overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

I'm an arrogant prick because the evidence says that people are too stupid to pay attention to the road?

Really?

Re:First

[MichaelSmith]

I take your point. I ride a bike myself and my phone stays in my back pack. Currently I almost zero enforcement for the use of mobile phones so additional ways to penalise their use may be helpful.

Re:First

[Tomsk70]

If the car detects more than one person in the front seats, viola

Re:First

[Tom]

Almost as ready for a strawman argument where making murder illegal is the first step towards a total police state.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't be 'owned' by the goverment.

It will be 'owned' by you. And can't be disabled really

It will be required by the insurance companies... (who will share any data with any law enforcement whenever asked)
Disabling it would mean you were not insured.. And that's required. Severe penalties and all that.

Why make it a scary goverment thing when you can make it a consumer safety thing people 'want' by 'having to have it'.

Re:First

[Firethorn]

Given that my laptop bag is sufficiently heavy to trigger the seatbelt warning if I simply put it on the passenger seat, I have the feeling that would be rather easy to bypass...

Re:First

[Cenan]

What you're referring to is the "dead man's switch" that disables the engine/equipment when the driver is not in his seat/pressing a button or some other trivial option to verify that a driver is present. This works really well for placing blame once the accident has happened, but really doesn't do much in the grand scheme of things (I know, I worked in a warehouse before my IT career - there are fairly trivial ways of disabling the dead man's switch. Last summer a tourist in Copenhagen got run over and killed by a garbage vehicle, because the switch had been tampered with official statement from Copenhagen city sorry the article is in danish).

The dead man's switch does not work because it is too simple, and all you need to do to disable it is apply pressure to the detector, similar to how you would disable the annoying sound of the seat belt alarm. What is really needed is a mechanism that is ingrained so deeply into the vehicle that you need to take the damn thing apart in order to disable it, thereby putting the alteration out of reach of most people.

Besides, we don't really want to detect if a driver is present or not, we want to detect if the driver is paying attention. I'm pointing out that the tech is already there to some degree, all it takes now is some fine tuning and political will to make the roads we all use safer. I don't really give a shit about the paranoid fucks who come out of the woodwork every time this kind of discussion comes up, I just want to be able to get into my car and drive - and be safe knowing that my fellow drivers around me are paying attention, like I am.

Re:First

[Tomsk70]

Well, I was giving a rather base idea - it's not very hard to do facial recognition/ heat detection/ etc. - sure, there will be people who try to circumvent it, but then when seatbelts were made law there was always some wag who connected the seatbelt before sitting down because 'nobody tells me what to do'...but after a few arrests, that attitude didn't really last.

Re:First

[MitchDev]

You win the internet

Re:First

[paiute]

How did people ever manage without electronic devices to numb their kids' brains?

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The wheels on the bus go round and round...

Re:First

[stenvar]

Really? So you think the general population ... most of which are using their cell phones while driving are smart enough to make intelligent decisions themselves

Yes, I think "the general population" is smart enough to make decisions about how to drive for themselves. If you don't believe that, you don't believe in democracy.

I'm an arrogant prick because the evidence says that people are too stupid to pay attention to the road?

No, you're an arrogant prick because you think you're better than everybody else.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Both of you totally missed what that guy said. He's able to do what he did because of it. It did not define him, only enabled him to do more. You're both so focused on trying to prove your point you just make yourself sound dumber.

Re:First

[EmagGeek]

Actually that would be a slippery slope, not a strawman.

Re:First

[FireFury03]

They managed by beating the children into submission. The ipad is a much better approach.

I disagree. A Windows 8 tablet is a better approach - much heavier than an ipad, so much more effective when used to beat the children into submission.

Re:First

[IdolizingStewie]

You do realize that people made road trips and had entertainment well before smart phones, tablets or even the Internet was invented, right?

You really will survive without it. Believe it or not, there was a time when there was no Internet at all! Yet, Human beings still made road trips, and raised their children without killing them. Even were capable of educating themselves.

I'm really not sure how the tablet your kid is staring at while you were focused on driving helped. You were focused on driving right? Or are you telling us that you are exactly the problem that needs correcting?

Amazingly enough, they allow women to drive, too, these days. Did it really never occur to you that maybe he was working while his wife drove, and the only other option was not to take the vacation at all? That's the only way I can read the GP.

Re:First

[Bing Tsher E]

If this new feature is 'smart' enough to do the above things described in the summary, it would be 'smart' enough to have diagnostic features allowing what you need for professional (certified) diagnostics.

Re:First

[Bing Tsher E]

A Mac Portable is far too heavy, though, and can kill the child.

Thank goodness for the PowerBook 160 series. It saved many a kid from brain damage.

Re:First

[Bing Tsher E]

The law won't apply to vehicles driven by a licensed chauffeur, if it's the passenger using the phone. Commercial vehicles will have 'exemption' features. And commercial drivers caught using the phone in said vehicles will lose their license and thus their job.

Re:First

[Bing Tsher E]

If the tradeoff reverts to 'lose your job' or 'spend time with your family' the choice was never whether to have a cellphone in the car.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's OK to intrude upon people you don't seem to much care for, is that it? Or is it just OK to pass regulations that you seem to think won't affect you personally. You're fearful of things you don't understand obviously--the first of which is data.

From the article:

“If you look at crash data, there are a number of crashes that are due to distracted driving,” Beuse says, but “our data is not refined enough to pinpoint [the exact cause of those] crashes.”

So they are trying to solve a problem THEY CAN'T EVEN PROVE EXISTS. You, however, just know it exists because you've doubtless read one or two stories about it, or perhaps done a 10 second internet search on the subject full of second hand stories and you are now going to be a crusader for safety, no matter how many people it annoys or whether or not it actually has any effect.

People like you disgust me.

BTW, geeks are not the kinds of people you generally want to piss off. An inconvenienced geek will come up with a way around this for his own use. A pissed off one will come up with a way around it and post it for everyone to use. Either way, unless we can get the NHTSA disbanded like they deserve, this will only serve to inconvenience the stupid.

BTW, I'm not advocating distracted driving. I'm advocating actually quantifying risk and perhaps investigating if there's anything that can be done about the problem besides having to hear the shrill cries of "ban it, ban it, ban it". Driving does not require 100% of your brainpower. If it did, humans could not perform tasks that are more complicated than driving--but we can. What we have now is not optimal, because of how the tech works, because of how drivers are trained, because of something. Let's actually fix that rather than just try to make control freak jerks feel like they're accomplishing something, huh?

Re:First

[Mirar]

My passengers are always playing with their phones. I think they would be annoyed if they couldn't. (And I would look for another car brand.)

Re:First

[drinkypoo]

Passengers know when to shut up.

No. They don't.

They really, really don't. They have this annoying habit of screaming, for example, when you engage in spirited driving...

OK, "screaming" is hyperbole. But I really don't need to be informed of what is happening ahead of me...

Re:First

[Imrik]

Chloroform

Re: First

[YttriumOxide]

My last compact car weighed 3985 lbs curb weight and it was German.

Hmmm... that's about 1.8 metric tons; definitely not what I'd calla a "compact car". My little sports car is just under 1 metric ton. Looking at various German cars on wikipedia that I'd call "compact cars" the weight seems to be around 1.3 metric tons in general.

Examples: Mercedes A Class, VW Golf.

That weight looks more like a family car to me - e.g. VW Passat.

But, as far as I know, the definition of "compact car" is somewhat different in different countries, so it's probably a definition thing more than anything else.

Where can one get one of these "ton and a half" SUV's?

The Ford Escape is about that (well, 1.5 metric tons; so a bit over in imperial)... I think that's classed as an SUV...

Re:First

[X0563511]

... and this is why children were beaten or forced to work.

Re:First

[jonored]

I'm pretty sure that "A trip that simply could not have happened if I couldn't have worked during the drive time between stops." indicates "wife drove, I was at work in the car so I could keep my job and do the month-and-a-half road trip I didn't have enough vacation time for". Survive in the short term, yes. Do the trip in the situation and have a house to come back to, maybe not...

Re:First

[Joe_Dragon]

and what happen when you drive into canada who will pay the $20 a meg roaming fees?

Re:First

[Saethan]

But how would we get our live video feeds from storm chasers!?

Re:First

[Culture20]

They managed because the kids weren't confined to child seats until they're 13yo (or whatever the new ridiculous age is). On long trips, we'd climb over seats, make faces from the rear-facing trundle seat, read books, play with toys, and sleep laying fully down with only a lap belt (the rear seats had only lap belts).

Re:First

[berberine]

Ever drive while juggling a hamburger and a soda?

I try not to juggle while driving. It's not really a safe thing to do.

Re:First

[nblender]

On the flipside, picture having a hyper-curious child... For about the first couple hours of a long trip, your child is emitting a constant stream of questions about what he sees outside the window and you're happily answering them, engaging your child in the journey and getting some science or culture lessons in here and there... Now tell me how you deal with 8 straight hours of that? So you force him to limit himself to one question every 2 minutes; every 5 minutes... After a while, you just want him to shut up...

He's almost 12 now and has his own ipod so listens to music but the pause button gets pressed fairly regularly for another question to sneak out ...

Re:First

[Attila Dimedici]

OK, perhaps you should take a look at accident statistics in the U.S. in order to discover that as cellphone use has increased traffic related deaths have decreased. This does not mean that cellphone use in the car is not dangerous. It just means that it is not something that needs to be "fixed". The fact of the matter is that 16 year olds are going to be dangerous drivers. If they are not doing something stupid with a cellphone when they are driving, they will find something else to do besides pay attention to their driving.

Re:First

[Charliemopps]

The solution isn't legal, it's social. All those years they spend trying to ban cigarettes, tax them... none of it worked. But the day I heard my niece describe a guy as "gross" for smoking I knew it was doomed as a habit.

Re:First

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually yes. However, you apparently think that while the general population is not smart enough to make intelligent decisions for themselves, they are smart enough to make intelligent decisions for everybody else. Because that is what you are asking for. You are asking the general population to make a decision that applies to everyone. If they aren't smart enough to make an intelligent decision for themselves, what makes you think they are smart enough to make an intelligent decision for me?

Re:First

[Tom]

It would be a slippery slope if there were even the faint ghostly remains of some content to it. At best, it's an imaginary potentially unperfectly grippy slightly inclined partial slope. :-)

Re:First

[crakbone]

Actually I think you will find it's tweeting and watching the police mop up the mess you made of someone else's body. Texting is just one symptom of distracted driving. There are others and putting in phone restrictions will only cover up one symptom instead of handling the main problem. Eating food, drinking water, writing notes, putting on makeup, talking to others in the car, noisy kids are all part of the problem and would not be handled by a phone with reduced or restricted capabilities. If we are going to take away freedoms of judgement we might as well try to handle the whole problem rather than restrict one little aspect.

Re: First

[ArtemaOne]

Maybe you don't understand what compact means? A compactor crushes things that are bigger or heavy into a smaller package. Some small cars weigh a LOT now, but are still much smaller than a standard sized car.

Re: First

[crakbone]

toyota rav-4 and suzuki sidekick come to mind real quick. I'm sure I could find some more but I think your probably just enjoying being snippy.

Re:First

[I'm New Around Here]

You drive my mom to her doctor's appointments too?

Re:First

[ganjadude]

On top of that, isnt blocking a cell signal illegal??

Re:First

[ganjadude]

it is already there in the majority of modern cars, they dont need the cell phone data as well

Re:First

[ganjadude]

those who give of freedom for temporary security will get neither... dont forget that

Re:First

[AlecC]

Some of the proposed solutions are based by position. It would send a "shut up" message to any phone determined, by signal reflection, to be in the drivers seat area of the car. So as soon as the passengers phone moved into the drivers volume, it would cut off. The disable signal would then be gated with handbrake off: pull on the handbrake if you need to call breakdown services.

Just make sure that it is car based, not phone based, so if you take your phone to a country where the drivers seat is on the other side, it doesn't get it wrong.

Re:First

[AlecC]

Why does it have to be done by blocking.? You send an extra, "shut up" signal to the phone.

Re:First

[AlecC]

Since at least some of the schemes would use reflectometry to determine where in the car the phone is located, it does not need to disable passenger's phones.

Re:First

[randizzle3000]

Some of the proposed solutions are based by position. It would send a "shut up" message to any phone determined, by signal reflection, to be in the drivers seat area of the car. So as soon as the passengers phone moved into the drivers volume, it would cut off.

Easy way to get around that: Stick your arm out to the passenger's side and text like that, even more dangerous!

Re:First

[SleazyRidr]

Or, something along the lines of listening to Pandora, or streaming radio.

Re:First

[haystor]

You put them in the rumble seat or the bed of the pickup and you can't hear a peep out of them.

Re:First

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm really not sure how the tablet your kid is staring at while you were focused on driving helped. You were focused on driving right? Or are you telling us that you are exactly the problem that needs correcting?

Why don't you actually read his entire comment before lecturing him about what didn't happen?

Re:First

[Firethorn]

but after a few arrests, that attitude didn't really last.

Where did they make not wearing your seatbelt an arrestable offense?

Personally, I figure the 'few wags' stopped because it's a pain in the butt to buckle a seatbelt if you're not in it, and it's more comfortable across your body than under it - IE it's more of a pain in the butt.

Re:First

[CanHasDIY]

They managed because the kids weren't confined to child seats until they're 13yo (or whatever the new ridiculous age is). On long trips, we'd climb over seats, make faces from the rear-facing trundle seat, read books, play with toys, and sleep laying fully down with only a lap belt (the rear seats had only lap belts).

...and on occasion, die needlessly in what would have otherwise been a completely survivable crash. As is often the case, the good old days weren't that good.

Which obviously didn't happen in this case, otherwise OP wouldn't have been able to tell the tale. Then, of course, there's the absolute fact that even with all of modern living's fancy safety devices, people still get killed in car crashes. So it goes.

In case you weren't aware, people die

every

single

day.

A lot of them, actually, and often in needless circumstances. It's a fact of life: everything dies.

So, what was the point of your comment? To say that having the fucking state dictate every single tiny detail of our lives is somehow better than living as free men, because there's a slight improvement on the odds you'll be alive for another couple of minutes? Or maybe you just get your rocks off denigrating the position of others? Dunno; I'm not you, and glad for it.

Here's my point, if I have one: Don't be such an unbearable pussy, that you feel compelled to dictate to others how they should live their lives. It's a real dickhead move, and frankly a lot of us are sick of hearing about how you feel there should be a ban or regulation on everything that scares you.

Fuckin' grow a pair, brah.

Re:First

[LateArthurDent]

...and on occasion, die needlessly in what would have otherwise been a completely survivable crash. As is often the case, the good old days weren't that good.

That's not how you do a cost-benefit analysis. "On occasion" can be perfectly acceptable. Exactly what was the risk of a death for a child dying per mile back then, and what is it now? Notice I didn't say, "what is the risk for a child dying when involved in a collision" or anything like that. You have to take into account the chances of getting into a collision in the first place to determine whether adding the safety features are worth the hassle. Additionally, when comparing the numbers, you'll have to correct for other safety features added in cars, such as better crumple zones that are capable of absorbing more of the energy in an impact.

Re:First

[flink]

They managed because the kids weren't confined to child seats until they're 13yo (or whatever the new ridiculous age is). On long trips, we'd climb over seats, make faces from the rear-facing trundle seat, read books, play with toys, and sleep laying fully down with only a lap belt (the rear seats had only lap belts).

...and on occasion, die needlessly in what would have otherwise been a completely survivable crash. As is often the case, the good old days weren't that good.

That's not the point. No one is arguing that better safety is not an improvement over the past. The point is that when you confine a kid they act out more because there is less they can do.

My 20 month old goes stir crazy because she is still stuck in a rear facing car seat. Maybe when she was an infant she could entertain herself staring at the seat upholstery for an hour, but now she sure can't. So after she gets board of her books, toys, and dolls, we'll pass back an iPhone playing Finding Nemo in guided access mode.

So if they ever start putting a device in my car that disables the phone, I'll find out where it's located and take a hammer to it.

Re:First

[pepty]

The law won't apply to vehicles driven by a licensed chauffeur, if it's the passenger using the phone.

To avoid the wrath of politicians the system will have to let them use their device while an aide (not a chauffeur) drives them around. And the car companies are completely screwed if the system interferes with lawyers billing hours during their hourlong commute.

Re:First

[xclr8r]

Think of the children. It only takes one failed attempt at a child/teen trying to notify parents that she is in a bad situation for this to get flushed down the toilet. It will suck because it will be a reactive reversal of this policy and some one will have to suffer. 911 call centers are starting to accept 911 texts in acknowledgement that a call instead of a text is a bad idea when one is hiding during a home invasion.

Re:First

[Tomsk70]

Google is your friend - here's one example

http://199.193.115.250/kentucky/johnson-county/charges/failure-to-wear-seat-belts/3

Re:First

[arth1]

...and on occasion, die needlessly in what would have otherwise been a completely survivable crash.

Safety isn't desirable at all costs. It is not an improvement to survive if you don't have a chance to live.

When I grew up, kids were allowed to take small risks, including climbing trees and cliffs, riding the back of the truck with the dogs, whittling and carrying a sharp knife, read about evolution, use regular public transportation to and from school, and lots of other things. We lived. And almost all of us survived quite well, not having been cuddled and restricted.

Sometimes, the price of increasing long odds is too high.

Re:First

[pepty]

How exactly does one distinguish between HTTP traffic of social media or messaging protocols and "allowed" traffic if those protocols may change or new ones can be invented at any minute?

By charging extra? I'm sure Verizon could be cajoled into adding a monthly "driver denial update fee" on all of its subscriptions.

Re:First

[Bartles]

Someone who is willing to waste $60-80k on a freaking car, doesn't care.

Re: First

[Guy Smiley]

This is already the law in Alberta, Canada - it is about "distracted driving" not "cell phone usage". It is equally against the law to be applying makeup , reading a book or newspaper, etc. regardless of whether the car is in motion or sitting at a stop light.

Re:First

[CrimsonAvenger]

Really? So you think the general population ... most of which are using their cell phones while driving are smart enough to make intelligent decisions themselves ... even though the whole reason this is being brought up is due to the overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

So, what's the "overwhelming evidence to the contrary"?

More traffic fatalities? Nope, traffic fatalities (both on an absolute basis and per mile travelled) have been trending down for several decades, and are at or near all-time lows.

Alas for the busybodies, there isn't really all that much evidence (outside the lab) that the use of cellphones is causing calamities on our highways...

Re:First

[Ghostworks]

Pretty much true. My first thought when I'm outside downtown and I see someone smoking is, "who still smokes?" Of course, the fact that you have to stand 15 feet away from the door -- which is usually far enough out onto a busy sidewalk that it just encourages smokers to travel three more feet to the relative peace of a dark, dingy alley -- probably doesn't do much for the appearance of coolness either.

Re:First

[Firethorn]

Be careful of internet sources... I was really asking where is failure to wear an arrestable offense, not something they tack on with everything else when they arrest you for something major:

For example, your source:
1. Cassie Ann Ramey was primarily arrested for Drunk Driving(and reckless, etc...)
2. another DUI
3. DUI
4. Driving on DUI suspended license, speeding 15+
5. DUI
6. Winner - drinking under 21, open container, reckless, etc...
7. DUI
8. DUI
9. DUI and burglary
10. DUI

Re:First

[Ghostworks]

Microsoft actually filed a patent on this, for "courtesy-aware phones". Walk into a church or movie theater broadcasting the correct "quiet, please" alert, and cell phones could automatically go to silent/vibrate mode, or possibly only receive.

Most people's reaction was "who needs that?" with a smattering of "sounds like something useful to those planning a theater shooting".

Re:First

[el jocko del oeste]

It's a risk management question. What is the risk of some behavior and what is the cost of mitigating that risk?

My 13 year-old daughter likes to climb trees. I'll admit to being a bit unnerved seeing her 40 feet up in a tree. But she's cautious, which reduces the risk. And successfully taking on the the challenge adds to her sense of self-confidence and accomplishment, important qualities for a 13 year-old. On balance I find it to be an acceptable risk.

On the other hand, she wears her seat belt each and every time she gets into a car. No exceptions. The benefits of not wearing a seat belt strike me as being minimal. And a failure to wear a seat belt in a crash dramatically increases the risk of serious injury or death. When I do the analysis, skipping the seat belt is not an acceptable risk.

Smartphones provide a more difficult case though, largely because of the wide range of behaviors that they enable. Texting while driving? High risk. Using a navigation app? Modest risk. Listening to music? Low risk, unless you need to interact with the music app in some way, in which case the risk increases-- maybe a little, maybe a lot, depending on the quality of the user interface and what you're trying to do.

And that's just from the driver's perspective. A passenger can do almost anything with a smartphone, short of hitting the driver in the head with it, and not increase the risk of a dangerous crash. All in all, it makes it very difficult to make blanket statements about the risk from smartphones in an automobile. And therefore very difficult to regulate in a reasonable way.

Re:First

[mdielmann]

and what happen when you drive into canada who will pay the $20 a meg roaming fees?

All the issues brought up in this conversation, and this is the one you latch onto? Maybe they'll do what Amazon does with the Kindle - make it free for it's standard uses. Also, I think if it has GPS it might be able to be just a little more intelligent than your typical cell phone, even if they don't have those features.

Re:First

[AlecC]

I would want only-transmit, not only-receive. I don't want my phone ringing unexpectedly in the theatre; I can make up my on mind whether to call, though it could put up an easily dismissed "silence requested by " screen..

Re: First

[Cenan]

We have that in Denmark too, and a clause that leaves it up to the police officer to judge if you were driving in a hazardous manner. The problem with those kinds of laws is that they can only be applied after someone has already put someone else in danger. And many times the laws are applied to punish someone for actually harming someone else, and to a victim of someone else's negligence, those laws are quite useless - you've still been harmed.

Mandating technology that can detect distracted, tired or drunk drivers would stop many of those situations before they have a chance to inflict harm on others. That should be the ultimate goal, pride and fealings of justice very much comes second.

Re: First

[ArcadeMan]

If you're at a stop sign or a red light, you're still driving. You just happen to not be in motion at that moment.

Re:First

[kimvette]

> As somone below pointed out the hot spot for your cars internet connection, again I must ask, why do you NEED an internet connection in your car?

GPS, Rhapsody, Netflix (Don't worry, when I run Netflix the screen is out of sight), oh and did I mention GPS?

Re:First

[epyT-R]

Sure they were.. They just had different trade offs and they weren't all negative like your fallacy implies. In this case, less safety offered kids a bit more mobility in the car which allowed them more freedom in entertaining themselves. This is true in a lot of places across the freedom/safety spectrum in the past vs today.

Re:First

[arth1]

Some of the proposed solutions are based by position. It would send a "shut up" message to any phone determined, by signal reflection, to be in the drivers seat area of the car. So as soon as the passengers phone moved into the drivers volume, it would cut off. The disable signal would then be gated with handbrake off: pull on the handbrake if you need to call breakdown services.

Never mind that many newer cars don't have a handbrake...

How would I call the FBI to report the make, model and license plate number of the car in front of me where dollar bills are flying out the trunk? Or any other situations where making a phone call from the driver's seat without first stopping might be warranted?

This is better solved by legislation than technology. Legislation allows for human judgement calls (no pun intended). Just like cars that refuse to run unless the seat belt is fastened, this is a bad idea.

Re:First

[Runaway1956]

Is providing a hotspot a user interactive activity? TFS says it's all about talking on the phone, texting, or watching/reading media. GPS will still work, as would your hotspot.

Re:First

[avandesande]

On a related note, any time I have had a distracted driving close call it has been with talking to a passenger in the car. Nothing over the top, just regular conversation.

Re:First

[avandesande]

When I was a kid on long trips our parents would put a mattress in the back of the van and we would play games to pass the time. Amazing that we survived....

Re:First

[Krojack]

I use my hot spot for 2 things.

1. Google Maps on my tablet. Sure I can cache it all but I don't need to.
2. Streaming music via my tablet. Pandora or lately the Google All Access (which I really like).

Re:First

[AlecC]

How would you have done so in the days before cellphones? Such situations are very, very rare. Far rarer than idiots who think they can phone and drive. No solution can cover 100% of possible situations - if they cover, at relatively low cost, 90% of situations, and only lock out a few useful situations, they are probably good.

I disagree that this is, prima facie, a bad idea. The problem of drivers using phones while driving and killing themselves (Darwinian selection) and, more importantly, others who are not participants in their driving is a real one.

Just as in the seatbelt case, I think there might be an argument for a warning rather than lockout system. Many cars have warning lights and beepers for seatbelt not fastened, which allows you to move a car a few feet or to move in an emergency without fastening seatbelt. Similarly, you could have a voice which coos in your ear (and that of the person you are talking to) "Phoning while driving is dangerous", and prefixes your text unerasably with "Sent While Driving". Peer pressure will then stop most people doing it, while still allowing the exceptional cases which might exist.

Re:First

[JazzLad]

People like you (not necessarily you specifically) are why we have the TSA today.

Re:First

[miltonw]

What a stupid and horrible idea. If you are driving and some road-rage idiot is after you -- you can't call for help? What about those stuck accelerator situations? What if you are speeding to the hospital with some badly injured person and need directions to the nearest hospital? I could go on and on. What a stupid idea!

Re:First

[hawguy]

They managed by beating the children into submission. The ipad is a much better approach.

I disagree - playing car games, family singalongs, mom reading us a book (or older siblings reading to younger), impromptu spelling bees, going through math flash cards, etc on long car trips seemed a much better way to spend the time together than having each kid with his headphones on and head buried in his electronic device.

My family made nearly annual trips from New England to Florida for vacation to see the grandparents, no one got beaten into submission and we all have fond memories of those trips, even our parents.

We even survived a few car breakdowns without cellphones to call for help - back then, other motorists were willing to stop and help, or at least drive to the next town to send back a tow truck.

Re:First

[wiredlogic]

No it has a sensor for weight in the passenger seat. Otherwise it would bark at you if you opened the passenger door to retrieve or put something on the floor just before driving.

Re:First

[Tomsk70]

Or alternatively, be careful of picking holes instead of examing/ googling how much evidence is against you;

Also from the first page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atwater_v._Lago_Vista
"Texas law provides for police officer discretion in arresting any person caught committing a misdemeanor, such as violating its mandatory seat belt laws."

I was actually trying to help you avoid having to defend why it *wouldn't* be an arrestable offence...but never mind

Re:First

[epyT-R]

They weren't always bad either, compared with today.

Re:First

[stackOVFL]

I wish I had mod points. Mod parent up!

Re:First

[epyT-R]

I disagree - playing car games, family singalongs, mom reading us a book (or older siblings reading to younger), impromptu spelling bees, going through math flash cards, etc on long car trips seemed a much better way to spend the time together than having each kid with his headphones on and head buried in his electronic device.

As a kid who spent time rigging his own electronic entertainment for the car back in the 80s, I disagree with this one. God those insipid, idiotic games were boring as shit. They were worse than being bored and not doing anything because now I'd be pouring effort into being bored. It was worse than school. When I was that bored, I'd just sleep or daydream.

We even survived a few car breakdowns without cellphones to call for help - back then, other motorists were willing to stop and help, or at least drive to the next town to send back a tow truck.

Back then, tow truck operators would also listen on CB channel 9, at least in my area.

Re:First

[CanHasDIY]

And here's my point. Road safety is an issue. Yes people die everyday - but without proper regulation forcing companies to improve their safety record, they will NEVER change, they will NEVER try to improve their safety record because you know - people die every single day.

You seem to be confusing the personal responsibility of the individual (which is what we're discussing here) with the responsibility that manufacturing corporations have to their customers.

Taking your misconception into consideration, I'm going to ignore the rest of your post since it's probably not relevant to this conversation, either.

Re:First

[epyT-R]

Instead of selfishly demanding that others indulge your stockholm syndrome, why not advocate the removal of the cell towers installed along major highways? I remember the rush to install them back in the 90s and how everyone clamored for them. Just take them out and make service spotty on the road again.. It'll get to the point where most people won't bother. People who want navigation will just have to revert to offline software...and people who want to chat while driving, will just have to deal with down time (which isn't so bad really), and, so will their bosses.

Re:First

[epyT-R]

good luck enforcing that..and the technology that would enable this per-car would be so invasive in so many ways that the state would use it as a beach head for all sorts of further micromanagement. I guess buying a new car in the future is going to entail ripping out a ton of nannystate electronics and software, which is not too different from the reasons behind wiping the disk on a new OEM computer.

Re:First

[Kilo Kilo]

You don't know what's best for you, America. Big Brother knows what's best for you.

Re:First

[rk]

However, the situation of "the guy in front of me is drunk or high" is (unfortunately) NOT very, very, rare, especially if I'm on the road after about 9 pm, which is frequently for me. I call the cops at least once a month to report an impaired driver. I do have hands-free though, which helps.

Re:First

[Stormthirst]

Hey - I'm not saying that disabling phones in cars is a good idea. It won't do what it's supposed to do which is lower the number of deaths on the roads.

But car accidents often don't involve just one car. They often involve two cars, so if someone crashes into my car that's not my responsibility, but I am the one who is affected by someone else's responsibility (or lack thereof). I would like to have as much protection in my car as I can. Historically the introduction of safety features has been as a result of regulations, not because the manufacturers thought it was a good idea.

Re:First

[Prof.Phreak]

Indeed. Also, many cars disable playing wtih built-in NAV while car is in motion... but that is very frustrating when the passenger is trying to locate the route or find the right music in a playlist.

At the very least, if passenger side airbag is engaged, they should disable any driver restrictions on NAV (on assumption that it's the passenger that's doing the tinkering).

Re:First

[publiclurker]

Well, if the idiots behind the wheel are not capable of acting in a responsible manor, then it is up the the adults and companies to make them act responsible.

Re:First

[SuperTechnoNerd]

All this "Controlling people via technology" is incredibly short sighted. Makes you wonder if those who think this shit up ever graduated high school. Because those who did will have it circumvented in about 3 minutes anyhow.

Re:First

[wolfemi1]

So, what was the point of your comment? To say that having the fucking state dictate every single tiny detail of our lives is somehow better than living as free men, because there's a slight improvement on the odds you'll be alive for another couple of minutes? Or maybe you just get your rocks off denigrating the position of others? Dunno; I'm not you, and glad for it.

Here's my point, if I have one: Don't be such an unbearable pussy, that you feel compelled to dictate to others how they should live their lives. It's a real dickhead move, and frankly a lot of us are sick of hearing about how you feel there should be a ban or regulation on everything that scares you.

Fuckin' grow a pair, brah.

Geez, where did this come from? There've been huge improvements in auto safety over the last 40 years, and cars have fixed most of the obvious deathtraps. He was just pointing that out. Besides, children can't make an informed decision whether or not to take safety precautions.

People dying every day isn't a counterargument to "people shouldn't die needlessly".

Re:First

[wolfemi1]

Alas for the busybodies, there isn't really all that much evidence (outside the lab) that the use of cellphones is causing calamities on our highways.

Of course there isn't, how the hell would you prove that? Ask the person after a crash if they were talking on their phone when it happened?

I've been hit by someone who I'm pretty sure was talking on a cell phone. I've seen people on phones make incredibly stupid decisions in traffic, swerve into other lanes, go 10mph below the speed limit, etc. The only other time I've seen that is when people are eating or reading (yes, reading) in the driver's seat.

So there's anecdotal evidence, lab evidence, and a good reason for not having substantial real-world data.... why do you not think that it's happening?

Re:First

[Jane Q. Public]

"Even if you differentiate and only disable the driver's phone, how do you stop the drivers borrowing a passenger's phone? There isn't a technological solution to this, only legal ones (which already exist)."

Speaking of existing, there is another problem here: the fact that studies have broken any demonstrable cause-effect relationship between (voice) cell phone use and automobile accidents.

There is a correlation, to be sure. But actual studies done to show a causative effect have come up short. But it's even more solid than that, because real-world data show the same thing: where no-cell-phone laws have been passed, there has been no significant reduction in automobile accidents. And in those areas that subsequently repealed those laws, again there was no significant difference in accident rates.

The actual cause is likely an outside factor. For example: it is very possible that people who tend to drive distractedly also have a tendency to use cell phones for their source of distraction. But when they don't have cell phones, they are simply distracted by other things.

I bring this up because it has been shown that laws against (voice) cell phone use while driving do a significant amount of bad (can't make calls while on the highway, and so on, which has very significant health and safety implications), while not, in exchange, doing any tangible good.

I should also note that other studies have found absolutely no difference in "distracted driving" between so-called "hands-free" use and holding the phone up to your ear.

Re:First

[Agent0013]

The vigilance system in locomotives works a little better than a simple dead man's switch. If there are no control (power, brake, etc.) changes for 30 or 45 seconds it will start beeping at you for another 15 or 30 seconds. There is also an alerter button on the console that can cancel the vigilance alert, but it must be pressed, not held down. None of this would stop someone who is reading a book from hitting the button every 30 seconds without looking up, but it will put the brakes on if the operator falls asleep or steps away from the controls.

Re:First

[BitterOak]

The Prius does indeed restrict the front seating passenger from using most of its center panel functions when the car is moving, which is really idiotic because it's smart enough to know there is a passenger in the seat (since it will complain loudly when that same passenger doesn't put his seat belt on).

So, who the hell would buy a Prius then?

Re:First

[flayzernax]

We are elitists in this regard yes. Well I am. I can't speak for the other guy. I can remain silent and quite for days in mindful meditation. I expect my peers to be able to while in the car. I chose not to have children because I see better uses of my energy in society.

P.S. I have friends with plenty children and they are nice, if not a little ignorant and annoying people. So feel free to mod me a troll again for this particular statement.

But we deserve a pat on our back for looking at this kind of stuff objectively. I suppose in the situation you define. He is already in it. And there is little he can do to immediately change it. Same goes for his family. So by finding another solution and increasing their quality of life he did alright and it was a smart move.

But I pride myself on perfection before failure. Even if I do fail quite a lot. People aught to think about it even if they cannot turn back the clock. Looking forward with planning and a solid mental attitude that is implacable and strong is better than being dependent on technology for what most consider day to day activities that were just as easy prior to the advent of said technology. Some of us see this kind of dependence as a weakness. But again as you point out it may not be dependence, just an alternative solution to a unique problem.

I really shouldn't be judging. But I wanted to let you know were I at least came from.

Re:First

[CanHasDIY]

Spoken like a true fascist.

Re:First

[CanHasDIY]

... car accidents often don't involve just one car. They often involve two cars, so if someone crashes into my car that's not my responsibility, but I am the one who is affected by someone else's responsibility (or lack thereof).

That's why we have criminal and civil courts; so responsible parties can be held responsible for their actions. Nanny state measures are not a necessity (and contrary to popular belief, don't really save that many lives).

I would like to have as much protection in my car as I can.

To quote Austin Powers, "I'd like a toilet made of solid gold, but it's just not in the cards, baby."

Historically the introduction of safety features has been as a result of regulations, not because the manufacturers thought it was a good idea.

Interestingly, there's one safety feature that has been proven to save lives time and time again, yet has not been mandated to be installed in consumer automobiles: the rollcage.

Look at the history of any racing league; no airbags, SRS, crumple zones, or any of that other (expensive) stuff that we have in our modern cars, yet the deaths-per-crash numbers are insanely low compared to public roads, even though the race cars are usually travelling at rates that exceed public speed limits greatly, and with far less required safety gear. A helmet, special seat, seatbelt, and neck brace, and a rollcage - that's pretty much the only thing that keeps a lot of these people alive, and in what the NHTSA would probably consider a miracle, relatively safe.

Personally, I've lobbied for the better part of a decade to have some sort of rollcage built into automobiles by the manufacturer. It could easily be incorporated into the body/frame, and with today's lightweight alloys, would only increase the GVWR a trivial amount. To date, not a single request has been responded to... must be 'cause I'm not buying my "representatives" enough steaks.

Just something to keep in mind the next time the government wants you to accept/pay for yet another practically useless "safety measure."

Re:First

[CanHasDIY]

There've been huge improvements in auto safety over the last 40 years, and cars have fixed most of the obvious deathtraps. He was just pointing that out.

Try reading the thread again - the post Jawnn was replying to was about individual behavior, not legally mandated safety features.

Geez, where did this come from?

The fact that I am but a part of a growing segment of our population, who are just fed the fuck up with busybodies who have nothing better to do than mandate how we're allowed to live. Supposed to be a free country, right? Or have we finally stopped teaching children that particularly lofty ideal?

Besides, children can't make an informed decision whether or not to take safety precautions.

That's what parents are for. As I often tell people, if I wanted to be responsible for children, I'd have some of my own. Not in the business of forcing other people to raise their kids the way I think they should be raised, and no intention of ever doing so. Perhaps if everyone would extend such a philosophy to each other (your business is not my business, thus I should butt right the fuck out), the world would be a far more tolerant (and tolerable) place.

Re: First

[nytes]

So, I guess that what you are saying is that the poster of the GP just caused himself a metric shit-ton of trouble.

Re:First

[rthille]

Singing show tunes was worse than the beatings, if my beaten brain recalls correctly...

Re:First

[arth1]

How would you have done so in the days before cellphones?

Non-sequitur. How would you have blocked cellphones in the days before cellphones? Or before cars, for that matter?
Technology evolves, and our behaviour reflects this, as it should.

When technology leads to problems, the solution isn't to try try to block technology with more technology, but use it to enable better use. When all cars have hands-free dialling, drivers using their hands to dial ceases to be a problem, even if the same drivers can dial with their fingers.
That's a solution. Blocking the ability to dial isn't.

Re:First

[myth24601]

How did people ever manage without electronic devices to numb their kids' brains?

No seatbelts were required back in the good old days. I used to sit in the back of the station wagon on the floor playing with my cars and army men.

Re:First

[brickmack]

"Children can't make an informed decision" Sounds like a problem for evolution, not laws

Re: First

[I'm New Around Here]

Apparently not. He got modded Informative, and my humorous post got modded Flamebait.

Let this be a lesson: Don't dis the metric people, they are petty with no sense of humor.

Re:First

[MichaelSmith]

I will be used against facebook obsessed 20 somethings. Most of the time it will stay in place and they will drive with one hand stuck out the drivers side window, holding their phone.

Re:First

[Belial6]

How often do you take the time to spend 6 or more weeks traveling with your children?

Re:First

[Totenglocke]

It doesn't matter how many laws and regulations you pass, people will still die. It shows just how delusional people like you are to think that you can actually legislate away death.

Re: First

[YttriumOxide]

Let this be a lesson: Don't dis the metric people, they are petty with no sense of humor.

If it helps - which it probably doesn't - I would've modded you "Funny". I agree whoever modded you flamebait clearly had no sense of humour. Let's hope it gets them back in metamoderation.

Re:First

[Totenglocke]

Do you realize how many millions (actually probably hundreds of millions) of people in the US drive and talk on the phone or even text while driving every year without getting in an accident? The people who are dumb enough to put a phone over driving are dumb enough to get themselves killed no matter how many laws you pass.

Re: First

[I'm New Around Here]

Oh, hey. Hi!

Glad to know you liked it. But, yeah, no humor in some of those people.

Actually, I'm surprised no one really tore into you for the "weight" thing. That sets a few of them off all the time.

Anyhow, have a nice weekend.

Re:First

[jtalle]

passenger - do you want to restrict them, too?

Yes. I want them to walk.

They're too distracting and won't leave me alone.

Driver not the only one in the car

[Todd Knarr]

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.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[Anonymous Coward]

This is about the US, not whatever country you live in where people drive with passengers. That's why the story has a nice US flag next to it. The idea that passengers would be inconvenienced is laughable, it's not like anyone ever drives with other people in their car.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the fact that it won't be able to distinguish between the driver using a phone and the driver using a phone because he has an emergency and need to.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[sjames]

If you block the kids in the back seat too, you might increase the driver's distraction considerably.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[Cenan]

So, what is really needed is a one seated car with no gadgets installed and which block cell phone traffic. CityEl, this one has 1 seat and not enough room for you to actually move your hands, let alone use your phone - and certainly no room for kids.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[macklin01]

Furthermore, the passenger might be helping with the navigation, answering those critical emails, etc ... to help the driver keep focused on the road.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[stenvar]

They will pass a law requiring the kids not to distract the driver! That will fix it! Right after the law requiring kids not to scream their lungs out on flights! It's just that evil conservatives are currently blocking this legislation right now because big business and gun lobby!

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[ArsenneLupin]

This is about the US...it's not like anyone ever drives with other people in their car.

... maybe if they want to take advantage of the HOV lanes? (ok, ok, I know, a blow-up doll has no use for a cell phone...)

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[ArsenneLupin]

not enough room for you to actually move your hands

Yeah, hands can be pretty distracting too... especially if you spot a hot stud on the sidewalk...

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[Alioth]

You make the phone work only when it's either in the back of the car, or the right half of the car if in the front (or the left in countries that drive on the left). If it passes over the transmission tunnel to the left side front then it shuts down. Short range radio transmissions can be used to accomplish this.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[Cenan]

So your flight got ruined by some screaming kid in the seat behind you?
A hero with a gun would have solved the problem!

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[ozydingo]

Great, so now drivers will start holding their phones over the passenger seat to use them, drawing their gaze even further from the road. Don't act like it won't happen.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[Minwee]

So, what is really needed is a one seated car with no gadgets installed and which block cell phone traffic. CityEl, this one has 1 seat and not enough room for you to actually move your hands, let alone use your phone - and certainly no room for kids.

I would really rather be driving this car.

Re:Driver not the only one in the car

[Todd Knarr]

Net access on my phone is through the cellular network, no cable involved. The same network used for voice. The only way to change that is to block all cel network access inside the car and force all phones to go through the car's cel relay. But that'd involve 1) an expensive bit of hardware in the car to create a mini cel tower and 2) forcing everyone to replace their phones with ones that can route voice and data through the USB cable (mine can't, the USB connection is for block storage device and serial data only, it takes some special software to fool the phone into thinking the USB connection is a 3G cel data interface plus you have to root the phone to do it and it doesn't route voice). So no, that's not going to work.

Cut off our nose to spite our face ...

[BitZtream]

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.

Re:Cut off our nose to spite our face ...

[discord5]

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.

I don't have much faith in solutions like this because it's one of those problems which are social problems, not technological ones. If we disregard the technological feasibility of this, for the sake of argument, we're going to have people who are going to look for ways to circumvent this measure (and they will find it, have no worries about that). On top of that, any car and phone which isn't equipped with such a system still allows for people to call/text while driving.

A much better solution to this type of problem in my opinion is to raise awareness, make the whole thing punishable with a fine and for repeat offenders include a revocation of the drivers license, and actively enforce it. In the beginning you'll have people who will blatantly ignore these measures, but once they start getting hit with fines most of them will stop. And just like with parking fines, you'll have people who blatantly ignore the law, as with any other kind of restriction they feel that doesn't apply to them, which is where the revocation of the license comes into place.

On my morning commute which often involves 20km/h freeway "happiness", I've seen plenty of people use non-technological means to distract them from the task at hand. People reading the newspaper while driving, doing crossword puzzles, having breakfast, doing their make-up, etc etc etc. Hell, I've even seen someone miss a green light because they were too busy playing with their kids (an admirable feat, just not in traffic). You don't solve those kinds of things with a bit of electronics in the dashboard.

It's not the calling and texting that is the problem, that's just a symptom of the underlying problem. The problem is that people aren't paying attention as they're hurtling down the road at breakneck speeds. There's no chip you can place in the dashboard that makes people pay attention to what they're doing.

Re:Cut off our nose to spite our face ...

[MitchDev]

So by your logic, if people use cars to kill people, we have to ban cars?

Tech solution for a social problem

[mysidia]

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.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[crutchy]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Microsoft_-_Where_do_you_want_to_go_today.svg

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[sjames]

Jail time won't fix it. 1st offense you are required to affix stickers to the front, sides, and back reading "Caution: Moron". Second offense you get a flashing strobe and a loudspeaker that repeats "DuuuuuH!" at 100 db. Third offense, they affix a giant 3d rendering of a horses ass to the hood and trunk. If none of that gets the point across, you lose your license for 10 years.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Chrisq]

They're doing it all wrong. You can't solve a social problem with technological features.

I don't know ... deodorant does a pretty good job

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[dbIII]

The solution is to fix the culture to make it socially unacceptable.

It worked with phones in movie theatres so maybe some push to put phones in silent mode in the glove box could do something.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[adolf]

First offense: Cruel, unusual. (I can provide citations.)

Second offense: Noise ordinance violation.

Third offense: Cruel, unusual. (Again.)

Fourth offense: 10 years suspension? I'd rather they spend a week at Ft. Leavenworth making big rocks into little rocks. After that, two weeks. Then four.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Deluvianvortex]

There's no way you can make a car that will stop someone from tapping on their ipad, or putting on their makeup.

faraday cage built into the frame of the car. Simple.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Deluvianvortex]

tbh I don't give a fuck about people texting in movies anymore.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Belial6]

Agreed. The sad part is that there is a high correlation between the people that argue that they 'like to drive' so don't want autonomous cars, and the people that think cell phones are evil.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[richlv]

There's no way you can make a car that will stop someone from ... putting on their makeup.

faraday cage built into the frame of the car.

Simple.

...an example of techies failing to understand why social problems are hard to solve with technical means ;)

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Tom]

They're doing it all wrong. You can't solve a social problem with technological features.

No, but you can mitigate it. The problem is real, people are dying on the street today because someone checked his Twitter or Mail while driving. If a technological feature can reduce the number of these incidents by x% - well, ask the x% who would otherwise be dead if they think it's worth it.

The solution is to fix the culture to make it socially unacceptable.

While I agree on that, we do not have a formula on how to do that. Some stuff that we outlaw is also uncool, but some stuff is cool exactly because it's illegal. Laws do not define what's socially acceptable, and we don't know how exactly to change a culture.

The technology solution might not be as good, but at least we know how it can be done. That's a real practical advantage.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[sjames]

Easily gotten around. Offer those punishments in lieu of jail and lost license.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[rohan972]

They're doing it all wrong. You can't solve a social problem with technological features.

I think driverless cars will be a better solution to this problem. As someone who drives quite a lot for my work, I hope the day soon comes it is illegal to drive manually because it is too dangerous compared to our robotic chauffeurs. Judging by the way google navigation works for me, it won't be this year.

In the meantime, I agree with your first two solutions, the third is too drastic. Jail time if you cause an accident while texting perhaps but I don't think someone stuck in walking pace traffic who texts their wife they'll be late deserves jail time.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[mysidia]

In the meantime, I agree with your first two solutions, the third is too drastic. Jail time if you cause an accident while texting perhaps but I don't think someone stuck in walking pace traffic who texts their wife they'll be late deserves jail time.

5 - 10 MPH: ticket, $200 fine

10 - 25 MPH: $500 fine, license suspension

25+ MPH: 2 years in jail and $1000 fine for every 20 MPH of speed they were travelling, when caught texting.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[drinkypoo]

Have the law enforcement officers doing their job.

Jail time for any driver caught texting while in motion.

So close, and yet so far. Guess what? If LEOs did their jobs, we wouldn't need cellphone laws at all. Drivers would simply be ticketed for driving like an asshole, regardless of reason, and not ticketed if they aren't driving like an asshole. See, here's the fundamental problem with a cellphone law: some people drive better while talking on the phone than do other people while focusing on nothing but driving. If the goal is to prevent incompetent driving, we need to institute some serious driver testing and retesting, and take away licenses from people who fail it. But that means that the vast majority of the elderly would have their licenses taken away, and they vote.

When you propose enforcement of a bad law, you are expressing a bad idea.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[drinkypoo]

It worked with phones in movie theatres

It worked so well I don't go to movies any more, because I got tired of asking people if they would like their phone fitted rectally.

But the law banning cellphones isn't working. I see cellphones used while driving more and more, not less and less. So passing a law is a bullshit thing to do, too.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[drinkypoo]

The real problem is that people are driving while distracted, and we already have a law against that. We do not need more laws. In fact, we already have a law against driving while distracted by cellphones, which doesn't work. But since the law against driving while distracted in general exists and doesn't work, the law was a bad law both because it was guaranteed to be ineffectual and it covers behavior already covered by an existing law.

The technology solution won't even work, it will be hacked around in a hot minute. And I, for one, am not planning to buy a new car any time in the next thirty years. I might get a slightly newer car, if I decide to trade in my 300SD for something with even better mileage, like a 1.8 Golf TDI.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[AxemRed]

The solution is to fix the culture to make it socially unacceptable.

This, right here, hits the nail on the head. I'm not sure about the mandatory jail time, but making it socially unacceptable is the key. Right now, playing with your phone while driving is kind of like speeding. Lots of people do it, and most people don't really care that you do it. Or even if they care, they don't really say anything to you. If we could get to the point where admitting to texting and driving was similar to admitting to reading a book while driving... where your friends would act like you're insane... then most people wouldn't do it anymore.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Tom]

The real problem is that people are driving while distracted, and we already have a law against that. We do not need more laws.

That, too. Though there's a related issue and that is that people vastly underestimate the amount of distraction that a quick Twitter check causes. Most people think of themselves as being able to handle that just fine and it not making any difference.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Xipher]

You realize it's not that easy to actually catch them texting in motion. If an enforcement officer sees it and pulls you over, how does he retrieve evidence? Taking your phone without a warrant seems like an easy to abuse stretch, and warrant-less retrieval of phone records isn't great either? What if you use Google Voice, they won't know the difference and when your records come up clean they will be stumped. These are issues I know have come up from officers here in Iowa when the issue of enforcing texting while driving laws were brought up. Simply put the law can be on the books, but officers hands are tied attempting to enforce it.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[MozeeToby]

The solution to X people dying is not "do anything and everything to prevent it". Lowering the freeway speed to 45mph would eliminate some percentage of freeway deaths too. So would mandating business hours on an individual basis (to stagger working hours and eliminate rush hour). So would 5 point harnesses instead of 3 point seat belts. Why don't we do these things? Because they're invasive, annoying, and people don't like them. Because they cause other problems than just the obvious. And note, none of those things open the door to wide scale government monitoring like the system described in the article would.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear! As a cyclist, distracted drivers are the scariest people on the road! I see far too many people having a conversation or texting on their phone. As defensive as I am about riding, all it takes is one distracted fool to kill me or maim me for life.

Also, people get very defensive when confronted about their cellphone use while operating a vehicle. Of course, everyone else is to blame for all the accidents caused by distracted driving. It's never their fault, and they're always careful and responsible and can handle it. Accidents happen for all sorts of reasons, sure, but some of them are avoidable if the driver had enough cognitive reserve and time to react!

Seat belts come to mind. It took decades, and started with mandating that auto makers put them in the cars in the first place. It's a social norm now, at least among the younger people in the United States. Not to say that everyone wears them all the time, but there's no longer the same degree of hostility to the idea.

For all the naysayers out there, what's YOUR solution to this problem? Shrug your shoulders and say nothing can be done? Accept the death toll as inevitable, a cost of doing business? Please keep that attitude to yourself. If you're not going to do anything to help, at the very least, don't get in the way of people who are trying to do something about it. Operating a car on public roads is not a right, it's a privilege. If your driving poses a risk to the public, the public has a responsibility to take you off the roads. Not "for the children", though children will probably benefit, but out of enlightened self-interest. The bottom line is that I don't want to get hit by a distracted driver, and I bet you don't want to be hit by one either.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[WryCoder]

Only 10% deaths due to distracted driving? Then what are the other 90%? There was a news article recently claiming 65% of the deaths were due to daydreaming, and 15% to phones etc.

How about requiring the driver to solve a captcha every two minutes by speaking the letters. The gummint could make money on this!

They're looking at tech solutions because they are easy and fun, compared to social solutions.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[johanw]

In The Netherlands they have solved that easily: it's just forbidden to hold a mobile phone in your hand while driving. Wether you are using it for calling, texting, VIP, Twitter or selecting an mp3 is not relevant.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[rohan972]

5 - 10 MPH: ticket, $200 fine

If you can't text and drive at 10MPH without having an accident (on a three lane highway has been my peak hour experience, no kids chasing balls onto the road) you shouldn't have a license and probably need to be strapped into your chair to have dinner.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[mysidia]

If you can't text and drive at 10MPH without having an accident (on a three lane highway has been my peak hour experience, no kids chasing balls onto the road) you shouldn't have a license and probably need to be strapped into your chair to have dinner.

The government should be nipping this behavior in the bud, which means it must not be tolerated at any speed, other than a complete stop. If you are moving 1 MPH, and looking at your phone or typing on your phone, then there should be a penalty, and law enforcers should be looking for you.

First of all... 10MPH cannot be excluded; if people are allowed to think that it is OK, and start doing it, they will get into this habit. It's like a gateway drug.

Due to self-herding. You text enough times going 10MPH, then you begin to think to yourself "I'm the kind of person who texts when I am driving, when I feel a need presents itself"; OR "I have accepted that I can text and drive".

Then it's just a matter of a slippery slope, or scope creep, before the person self-realizes OK... 5MPH is OK... then 10MPH must be OK, and 15MPH must be OK, it's just a little more.... then after getting into that habit... 20MPH must be OK, it's just a little more.... after becoming acquainted with that.... 25MPH must be OK, "It might be dangerous if other people do it -- but i've become skilled and experienced in this naughty habit of texting and driving, so it's OK for me"...... 30MPH.... 35MPH....

If you are texting, then your attention is not focused in front of you.

You may be going 10 MPH, but that doesn't mean a pedestrian isn't going to run out in front of you.

That doesn't mean a car in another lane going 15 MPH, isn't going to pull in front of you, and then suddenly stop.

If you don't react in less than a second due to texting, then you are at fault.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[mysidia]

If the goal is to prevent incompetent driving, we need to institute some serious driver testing and retesting, and take away licenses from people who fail it. But that means that the vast majority of the elderly would have their licenses taken away, and they vote.

Perhaps there should be an annual mileage tax for holding a driver's license, the proceeds of which, could be used to subsidize for X miles of mass transportation and public taxi service for those that don't get to have licenses.

So that those people can purchase their transportation at a similar or lower cost than car and driver's license ownership.

Then you could make the rules required to hold a driver's license very strict, and require a detailed road test every 4 years; with very strict standards, required minimum reaction times, accident avoidance skills, and understanding of the law, required; at a level of that sufficient to indicate that driver is an absolutely minimal risk of causing an accident. The average driver today might or might not qualify.

The elderly would still be just as fine getting around, by relying on the transportation service. They wouldn't need licenses -- they would be safer, and be less likely to die in a car crash. The roads would be safer.

Just; because instead of 'everyone' having licenses; everyone pays a qualified driver -- you have a new industry as a result.

Because of the taxes required, it becomes of the benefit of every qualified driver to transport multiple people per mile driven.

If you need to go somewhere, it makes sense to buy the cheapest transporation arrangement available that suits your needs.

Logically... the more stuff you need to transport with you, and the faster you need to get from point A to point B; the higher the cost.

People would feel the pain of paying more -- than paying that cost of transport up-front by purchasing a car and gas+maintenance over time, which is disconnected from the experience of travelling a certain distance with a certain load.

As a result, energy usage goes down, and the environmentalists should be happy as well.....

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[mysidia]

Only 10% deaths due to distracted driving? Then what are the other 90%? There was a news article recently claiming 65% of the deaths were due to daydreaming, and 15% to phones etc.

I would take those stats with a bit of skepticism. After all... people may be too embarrassed to admit the real cause.

Many accidents are a result of driver error as well, or intentional inconsiderate behavior/flagrant rule violations, such as yellow/red-light running, speeding, right turns on red without coming to a complete stop and checking all directions -- misbehaviors with an unintended (but very likely ) effect.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps there should be an annual mileage tax for holding a driver's license, the proceeds of which, could be used to subsidize for X miles of mass transportation and public taxi service for those that don't get to have licenses.

Here's the problems with what you're saying: everything. First, you're asking one group to cover a service they really, really don't use for another group. This is not like bicyclists paying for the roads that bring their freight. Second, the best public transportation doesn't even involve roads. It'd be a combination of rail and ultra-light-rail, i.e. PRT. And I know from extensive personal experience that public transportation short of PRT is always going to cost you a lot of time. Until we make public transportation not suck, it's no wonder that people reject it.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[mysidia]

Here's the problems with what you're saying: everything. First, you're asking one group to cover a service they really, really don't use for another group

Incorrect. They are covering a service for another group but for the purpose of getting that other group out from behind the wheel of a vehicle. In other words: they are increasing their own safety, and increasing the safety of all drivers and all people being driven by orders of magnitude, when ensuring that all drivers meet higher standards.

I am suggesting that driving be made a much more difficult privilege to get, so possibly the average person in society would be unable to get the privilege, in order to reduce the accident rate to a miniscule amount.

And in exchange, for becoming privileged those that are capable of getting the privilege, have to pay for in effect, everyone else to get a driver, to totally compensate for the inconvenience and privilege they are being denied, which benefits the drivers by getting these other people out from behind the wheel of a vehicle.

Re:Tech solution for a social problem

[rohan972]

Then it's just a matter of a slippery slope, or scope creep

Yes, don't want those pesky citizens having freedom, they might abuse it or make wrong choices. Far better to have a rigid system of penalties, diligently enforced. While we're at it, let's ban dancing, who knows what it could lead to.

Re:Can't be done.

[spire3661]

Actually a reasonable GPS system already stores the map internally......just sayin. The only reason we have to stream maps is up until now we couldnt fit them on the device trivially.

Let's go even further

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Let's go even further

[crutchy]

Time to hit the open road

too many distractions... all roads will be covered in bland tunnels to ensure you behave like the robot they want you to be

Re:Let's go even further

[crutchy]

i wish my watch stopped whilst i was having sex

Re:Let's go even further

[dbIII]

The first Solaris movie really did predict the future!
For those who miss the reference the 1972 sci-fi movie Solaris has a very long tunnel driving scene (twenty minutes?) with no actors in shot and no dialogue. Despite that it's a very good movie based loosely on probably the least filmable but readable book I've ever read.

Apparently the director was sent to Japan to shoot some hi-tech stuff for the movie, ran out of time, so set the camera up in the back of a car on the way to the airport so he'd have something to show for an expensive trip.

Re:Let's go even further

[stymy]

As an actuary, I can tell you we don't care how fast you drive - as long as you pay appropriate premiums. So 10mph would work if you want to pay almost $0 per month, but if you're willing to pay real rates, driving at a normal speed is fine.

Re:Let's go even further

[Luckster7]

i wish my watch stopped whilst i was having sex

You're doing it wrong.

Sounds useful

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Sounds useful

[crutchy]

it just adds another aspect to a fire sale

Chauffeur's

[zippo01]

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.

Re:Chauffeur's

[azadrozny]

That would be cool, but Trunk Monkeys might be a cheaper option.

Absolutely, why not.. I will go along with this

[saloomy]

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.

Re:Absolutely, why not.. I will go along with this

[richlv]

will that come before or after you will surrender a bottle of water at airport and take off your shoes, then step into a nudescanner ? ;)

emergency calls allowed?

[crutchy]

can you still call 911 if your phone gets disabled and you're involved in some sort of accident (or you witness one)?

Re:emergency calls allowed?

[fnj]

Nobody thinks they have actually thought this through logically. IOW, of course not.

Re:emergency calls allowed?

[bp m_i_k_e]

I think the bigger concern would be calling 911 when some road-rage-nut-job is following you or when the suspicious looking unmarked "police" car is behind you on a deserted road.

Re:Can't be done.

[mwvdlee]

Modern GPS devices also pull in real-time traffic information to route it's users around traffic jams, accidents or other problems.

Meh.

[adolf]

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.)

Re:And if you are in an accident.

[Chrisq]

But your is under the impression it is still moving, you are trapped and cant call for help

If that were the only problem you could just allow "emergency calls only", as many phones do when locked anyway.

Already possible

[dbIII]

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.

Re:Can't be done.

[AaronW]

While the system in my car does this, it also downloads satellite imagry and road conditions in real time from the Internet as I am driving.

use a kinect instead

[Anonymous Coward]

It can detect fingermovements... sms prob solved
Could also detect raised middlefinger, a seizure, a fight in the car, driver falling asleep ...

Re:Can't be done.

[julesh]

Fitting a map of a reasonably sized area on a mobile device has been possible for a very long time. For instance, the UK section of OpenStreetMap is reasonably complete and takes up only around 500MB, which has been easily within the capabilities of a low cost mobile device for 5+ years now, which is to say longer than most map streaming services have been around.

The only real reason for streaming is that it lets people download and install an app quickly, and provides for seamless map updates. Neither of these reasons is going away any time soon.

Dumb, Dumber and now what?

[dbIII]

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.

Re:Dumb, Dumber and now what?

[Deluvianvortex]

how is talking on a cell phone any different from talking to the guy next to you while the movie is running? You can always leave if you don't like it. No one is forcing you to stay with us plebs.

Re:Dumb, Dumber and now what?

[DamonHD]

You shouldn't be doing either as they disrupt other people's enjoyment of the film, but one-sided conversations are demonstrably significantly more difficult to ignore and thus annoying.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Dumb, Dumber and now what?

[Imrik]

Cell phones generate light, which is significant in a dark theater. Also, people tend to talk louder on phones than in person, even in situations where they would generally try to be quieter than normal. That said, you shouldn't be talking to the guy next to you during the movie anyway.

Re:Dumb, Dumber and now what?

[Politburo]

It's not. Both are incredibly rude.

Re:Dumb, Dumber and now what?

[Deluvianvortex]

another reason movie theaters lose to piracy.

Al Capone

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Can't be done.

[ArsenneLupin]

We could fit the map on the device. Even my old Tomtom has enough memory for the entire maps of Europe.

However, an internet connection is great for getting up to date maps...

car manufacturer lobbying

[gl4ss]

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.

For pity's sake...

[L4t3r4lu5]

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.

Re:For pity's sake...

[Anachragnome]

"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."

Fuck that.

That will not do a thing to stop people that have become dependent on the social connection that a cellphone provides. It is quite simply a lack of self restraint. It isn't a problem that they are driving a car, it is a problem that they are using a phone while driving a car--take the damn phone from them. Seriously. If it is so easy for a court to take your car, and the "right" to drive it, why not just restrict the offender from owning or operating a cell phone for a similar duration to a drivers license revocation? They can still get a land-line and they can still drive to work, they can do everything...but talk on a cellphone.

Re:For pity's sake...

[L4t3r4lu5]

I can see your point, but it would be impossible to police. You can identify a car driven by a disqualified driver because it's often registered to that person, or a family member. There's no way for a policeman, on the street, to identify a banned mobile phone user. It would require a PNC check to buy a mobile phone.

Plus, how do you stop someone buying another person that phone? It's a £50 up-front fee and £10 a month over here for a PAYG phone. Get a friend who will pay the contract with your cash and you can have any phone you want.

Besides, who uses a cellphone to talk anymore? This is about texting while driving. They should be banned.

Re:For pity's sake...

[Joe U]

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.

In the US, that's so blatantly unconstitutional it would be thrown out of court about 15 minutes into the trial. 14 of those minutes would be the judge yelling at the prosecutors.

This needs to be applied evenly

[waferbuster]

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.

Re:This needs to be applied evenly

[stiggle]

and most/all of that equipment is used when the patrol car is stationary and doesn't require operator input (typing, etc) they're passive display. Most sensible law enforcement deploy cops in pairs - one to drive and the other to monitor & operate the tech.

Re:This needs to be applied evenly

[Alioth]

All patrol cars around here have two cops in them. Even while on foot, they tend to go around in pairs.

Re:This needs to be applied evenly

[Technician]

While we are at it we should remove evey roadside distraction that has text video or graphics that is not directly related to navigation.

Remove the video billboards, they should be illegal. I can turn off my phone. I can't turn off roadside distractions.

Wow. How stupid.

[DustPuppySnr]

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.

Why blame the tool for the fault of the user?

[Camael]

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.

 

Re:Why blame the tool for the fault of the user?

[Alioth]

Fines DO work. We have a £1000 fine where I live if you're caught using a handheld phone while driving. You just don't see people around here using phones while driving, and the only time you see someone use a phone in a car they've found somewhere to pull over and stop before using it.

Re:Why blame the tool for the fault of the user?

[Camael]

Fair enough, I must admit I've never heard of £1000 fines and was thinking of the much smaller sums most traffic offences impose which are in my limited experience paid and ignored. If fines of this magnitude work, then by all means make it so.

One philosophical objection I have to imposing fines only (without other penalties) however is that it may not deter those who are financially well off, you know, the typical lawyer/politican/movie star/singer/CEO-in-a-rush scenario. Some of them may pay without batting an eyelid. Others may simply expense the fines as a cost of work. Granted, these are outliers and are unlikely to affect the statistics at the end of the day.

Re:Why blame the tool for the fault of the user?

[jcr]

I also favor the immediate suspension of the right to drive upon arrest

Then fuck you. There's a reason why we have trials, instead of allowing the government to inflict punishments upon accusation.

-jcr

Re:Why blame the tool for the fault of the user?

[fnj]

Just one honest question: what happens if they literally don't have £1000 to piss away paying an organization of menacing, thieving thugs? I would honestly like to know. Do you seize money they need to support their family?

If I sound a trifle petulant, it's because in my world you punish the actual crime (e.g., reckless negligence, only in the case someone is ACTUALLY HARMED), not taking actions that are PRESUMED by some asshole to make you more LIKELY to commit a crime.

Re:Why blame the tool for the fault of the user?

[Joe U]

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.

Well, if you completely throw the entire concept of due process out the window, then WOW! WHAT A GREAT IDEA!

"Pass it to a passenger"

[stiggle]

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.

Brilliant

[sjames]

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.

Great Plan!

[diakka]

What could possibly go wrong?

What if

[MitchDev]

You are a fucking passenger?

Fuck these Nazis

Re:What if

[jbeaupre]

What if You are a fucking passenger?

That might be more distracting to the driver than a cell phone.

Re:What if

[MitchDev]

Very true.

Even truer... Fuck the nazis at the DoT and NHTSA...

Free car

[e70838]

I am using linux on my computer, now, I want to have a free car.

The NHTSA can go fuck themselves.

[jcr]

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

Re:Hooray for the nanny state!

[fnj]

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.

Or you could vote Republican. 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.

Hint: to which party did the president belong who actually created the DHS and TSA monsters and started a bunch of warrantless shit after 9/11? The Democrats were actually useful to me personally in helping to see what worthless slimeballs the assholes I used to be inclined to support were. Not that that makes them any better on balance.

Good idea.

[WOOFYGOOFY]

It's a good idea for drivers (driven lately) but what about passengers looking on a map or confirming appointment times?

Re:Good idea.

[EmagGeek]

Government only knows "one-size-fits-all" solutions [sic]. What's good for the driver is good for everyone in the car.

Why not invent a general state hint mechanism?

[benjfowler]

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.

Make the phone the key

[Registered Coward v2]

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.

Put in a seatbelt to police call system

[gelfling]

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.

Re:Put in a seatbelt to police call system

[ozydingo]

"Force" is putting it strongly. I don't have an entertainment system in my car. I also don't use my phone in my car. Astonishing, I know. How on earth I keep myself entertained in cars is still a mystery to me.

And no, I'm not saying everyone's needs are the same as mine.

Re:Put in a seatbelt to police call system

[bp m_i_k_e]

And if you unlatch a seatbelt while moving, the car automatically disables itself and the police are called.

My state (PA) already actively enforces the use of seat belts - while at the same time allowing motorcyclists to ride without helmets. I wouldn't be surprised if our irrational representatives would be fully in favor of this absurd idea.

Re:Put in a seatbelt to police call system

[gelfling]

That's the silly part of it. We do exactly the same thing here in NC. Meanwhile I cannot remember a single instance of a driver in my county being charged, in the last 15 years, of ANYTHING when they run down and kill a pedestrian, bike rider or scooter driver if they weren't intoxicated. It's simply not considered a crime or much of an event at all. When you're behind the wheel they give you a pass to run people down as long as you can pass a sobriety test they won't charge you.

Re:Put in a seatbelt to police call system

[fche]

"It's simply not considered a crime ..."

The drivers may simply not have been at fault in the incidents you are aware of.

This is the dumbest idea I've heard today.

[Harik]

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.

Or even better yet...

[MachineShedFred]

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!

start with bottles!

[snitch182]

people should not be able to unscrew a bottle in a car .. ever!

Self-driving car

[mlippert]

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".

Stigmatize it...

[stove]

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,"

Darwinism

[Cyfun]

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.

Other solutions

[wb7dpf]

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.

Don't be such a nervous nellie

[Medievalist]

Ever drive while juggling a hamburger and a soda?

I try not to juggle while driving. It's not really a safe thing to do.

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!

Excellent idea...

[eth1]

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...

Not really

[phorm]

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).

Great idea!

[alexo]

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.

Shenanigans!

[Bob9113]

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.

What We Really Need

[lazarus]

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.

Pizza Delivery Drivers Get Pissed

[Khyber]

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.

Hang up and drive

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

A very simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

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
than the current generations who wouldn't know what to do without them. :D

For the common people, not us...

[Picass0]

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.

.

I hav a better one

[publiclurker]

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.

Re:I hav a better one

[CanHasDIY]

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.

Yea, why don't you do that? 'Cuz this whole "I have the right to tell you what to do with your life" nonsense you and your ilk posit is getting really, really fucking old. It's really none of your goddamn business whether or not I wear a seatbelt, or helmet, or decide to huff fuckin' spraypaint if that's what I want to do.

Coming from a spoiled child

[publiclurker]

that doesn't mean anything.

Re:Coming from a spoiled child

[CanHasDIY]

Sure it does; not my fault you lack the neural capacity to parse basic English.

Not going to matter

[jwilty]

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.

enough is enough

[ilec_geek]

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!!!!!

Re:enough is enough

[Skapare]

Not to mention all the people who will use whatever technology they come up with, at higher transmit powers, to kill cell phones everywhere (although in a movie theater, this might be a good thing). If the system requires authentication to work, no one will do it. If it's a coded signal, they better find a way to avoid a replay attack.

well done

[cellurl]

wow, slashdot always gets eyeballs with this-type-stuff. Well done.

Help your brother not get a speeding ticket.

And how will this affect using Waze?

[Skapare]

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.

Incredible

[MooseMiester]

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"