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Google Glass User Fights Speeding Ticket, Saying She's Defending the Future
Nerval's Lobster writes "A California software developer dubbed an explorer by Google and a scofflaw by the California Highway Patrol appeared in court to fight over the purpose and usage of wearable electronics. Cecilia Abadie denies she was doing 80 mph in a 65 mph zone when she was pulled over by the CHP Oct. 29 of last year, but proudly admits wearing her early edition of Google's Google Glass augmented-reality goggles. She just doesn't agree with the CHP's contention that Google Glass is a television. Abadie, who works at virtual-reality sports software developer Full Swing Golf and was one of the first 'explorers' chosen by Google as early testers of Google Glass before they were released, wears the goggles for as long as 12 hours per day, using them both as a way to pull email, driving directions and other information into her view and to push pictures, Tweets, updates and other information out to professional and social networks in a process she describes as 'living in transparency.' The California Highway Patrol, unfortunately for Abadie, considered wearing Google Glass to be the same as watching television while driving. One of the two citations Abadie was given was for speeding; the other was for 'driving with a monitor visible in violation of California Vehicle Code 27602.' Fighting that perception in court is 'a big responsibility for me and also for the judge who is going to interpret a very old law compared with how fast technology is changing,' Abadie told the Associated Press for a Jan. 16 story." A court commissioner in San Diego dismissed the Google Glass ticket, saying he could find no evidence that the device was in use while Abadie was driving.
glasshole.
Where is moderation: -1 False?
1. WTF is this slashdot datacenter bullshit?
2. Was the broad speeding?
Google Glass is irrelevant to the speeding ticket, she's "defending the future" as part of her fight against the other ticket...another solid performance, Slashdot.
You're guilty because we think you look guilty, now just sit there quietly while we figure out what you are guilty of.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
She was wearing them, but no indication they were on. What's the story again?
Just look at this page:
https://plus.google.com/+CeciliaAbadie/posts
That right there is the future of the human race.
A self obsessed, attention seeking, ignorant person who thinks she can drive with a HUD. Maybe she can, but until she has trained in the army to use HUD's whilst driving, take the bloody thing off, for once, think of other people!
This single woman has basically enabled the world to drive with google glass. All those future accidents, waiting to happen, are on you Cecilia.
As a resident of San Diego, I hope to goodness that I don't run into her... or to be more literal, that she doesn't physically run into me or anyone in my family.
To weasel out of an everyday traffic ticket is one thing... but to say that she's "defending the future" is an affront to the public servants and to regular drivers and citizens who are just trying to make our roads safe.
At 80mph, you travel over 117 feet *per second*. (She may have denied it, but I'm pretty sure the cop was right and that she was going 80, or at least close to it — this is San Diego, and pretty much everyone drives at around 75 - 80). Using Glass, it's very easy and conceivable to focus on the image for a second or two. You could almost clear an entire football field in that amount of time.
While there may be marginal gains of utility and efficiency by using a product like Google Glass while driving, I am very hard pressed to hear that it would actually make anyone safer... and of course, time will likely show that products like this (just like with cell phone use and texting) will actually make drivers less aware of the road, and thus, more dangerous and more prone to accidents.
At some point, we need to just label "idiotic" for what it is, and admit that some "causes" are just that.
It's irrelevant that there is "no evidence" Glass was being used while driving. The fact of the matter is Abadie was wearing Glass while driving and California law prohibits driving even with a computer sitting closed on the front passenger seat or anywhere in the front of the car.
A San Diego court commissioner dismissed a traffic ticket on Thursday against a California woman who drove with Google Glass, a tiny computer mounted on an eyeglass frame. Court Commissioner John Blair said he was dismissing the citation against Cecilia Abadie on the grounds there was no proof her Google Glass was operating when she was pulled over in October by a California Highway Patrol officer
The future is guaranteed to arrive without Cecilia Abadie's help. Not just in the trivial sense that the calendars will turn over, but in the sense that almost anyone alive today is going to find some of the broad social and technological changes tough to get used to.
Yes, I wear a fedora hat. Yes, I have multiple Apple devices. Yes, I use Ruby on Rails and Node.js. Yes, I refuse to learn SQL. And, yes, I would wear Google Glass glasses constantly if I had a pair.
These things are the essence of life. They are what make me a GOD among men. They are what elevate me above and beyond all that is human.
My ego is not big because it is large in size. My ego is big because I own the high-tech gadgets needed by a GOD. My ego is big because I use the technologies used by a GOD. My ego is big because I AM A GOD.
And truth be told, the sooner HUDs are moved into the driving experience, the better. It's just that at certain speeds particular features should likely be disabled.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sooner or later insurance companies are not going to indemnify
a drivers who was distracted by using a device which was illegal
to use while driving.
One of you fools out there ( you know who you are ) might just end
up being the test case.
Visualize living in a shopping cart and having your wages garnished for the rest of your
miserable life. Sooner or later it will happen to one of you idiots who drive while engaging
in distracting behavior. You will lose in court and you will be ruined financially,
and you will goddamned well deserve your live being ruined.
She's just lucky that the cop wasn't an ex-cop and that she didn't try to throw a bad of popcorn at the officer.
People have been shot for less than using Google Glass while driving.
I was defending the future and paving the way for others.
No need of arguing about speeding, check the recording on the various devices, phones, car computer, glass, etc.
Silicon Valley used to be a truly remarkable place. It was where industry and the future truly did collide head-on. And because of this, great things happened there.
Hewlett-Packard. Fairchild Semiconductor. Xerox PARC. Intel. Sun Microsystems. Cisco Systems.
Those were the kind of names we came to associate with very advanced technological achievement. They earned our respect with the tremendous advances they made.
But then something happened. Silicon Valley ceased to be about a productive, beneficial future. It became about a shitty, rotten future. It became about "social media". It became about advertising. It became about a disturbing level of data collection and mining.
The Silicon Valley of today is a mere shell of what it once was. Clad in fedora hats and rampant hipsterism, Silicon Valley of today is a sissified, degenerate place. Gone are the real scientists and engineers who advanced technology for all of mankind. Gone are their advances. Gone are the hope they brought.
I weep for Silicon Valley. It truly does make me quite distraught to think about what has happened to it. One of the greatest intellectual creations ever to existed has been crushed by men who wear tight jeans and glasses without lenses. It has been dragged through the mud by overweight, unshaven manchildren wearing stained shirts with shitty Japanese drawings on them. It has been shit upon repeatedly by self-styled "entrepreneurs" and "engineers" whose only talent is unjustifiable self promotion.
It is too late to save Silicon Valley. But other technologically-inclined regions should take note of what happened there. Keep away the hipsters. Keep away the bearded manchildren. Keep away the "entrepreneurs" and "engineers" who spew forth about Ruby on Rails. These people are an infection, and this infection will destroy even the most robust of technological and industrial communities. Do not let them ruin your community like they ruined Silicon Valley's.
I would of been more impressed if she used the google glasses to prove she wasn't speeding.
Be seeing you...
Rich entitled-feeling woman with new shiny toy feels she is above the law, news at 11.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
"Isn't that like saying a pilot is distracted by having his HUD turned on?"
NO, it obviously is not. WTF, over?
HUD are designed to make aircraft operation SAFER by maintaining pilot situational awareness. They put information relevant to operating the aircraft in his field of vision so he doesn't have to scan down/sideways as often to read MFDs and instruments.
Now what tech-illiterates modded that post up? That's a disgraceful display of cluelessness.
See the HUD example. Read what the display depicts:
http://falcon4.wikidot.com/avionics:hud
Watch the HUD video to see why this display is important especially when under G's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHx-OWdHqf8
Note the absence of Tweets, email, and office-related correspondence.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Great, she got out of a ticket this time, but not for any reason that challanged the law, and it won't work a second. When she gets cited again, she will go to court and the argument will be this: "We were leinient with you last time, but we did let you know that using Glass while driving is illegal. At this point you have no reason to wear them at all while driving. Pay the ticket."
Were you using a distracting device? Yes.
Were you speeding? Yes.
Are you now wasting MY tax money and the courts time? Yes.
Throw the bitch in jail for a month. I don't mind paying for THAT.
You are not 'defending the future' you are defending being a self absorbed twat. And *I* don't want you to win and cause more of that.
Personally i'd ban the use of cellphones while the car is in motion. Most of them now have accelerometers. Use it. Disable the phone if the car is moving.
Less distracted morons on the road is good for everyone. Oh you're a passenger? We'll have passenger mode.
Get caught driving with your phone in passenger mode? $10,000 fine and a month in jail.
We'll put a stop to driving while distracted real quick. At least for phones. Is it perfect? Nope. But it's a good start.
Letting people be the cause of 30,000 deaths on the road per year because you don't want to infringe their 'rights' is bullshit. We stripped away more rights for 3000 deaths on 9-11. If we're going to keep losing rights. Lets at least put their loss to some use that actually prevents deaths.
As someone who intends to use Glass or something like it for GPS while driving, I really don't see that Glass will be any more distracting than having my tablet do GPS for me, or my phone, or a dedicated GPS on the dash. I recognize that it may be slightly more distracting than the dedicated GPS due to the possibility of notifications suddenly taking focus on the screen, but no more so than when the same thing happens on my phone when I'm using it for GPS.
I understand the concern about people playing on the internet, or actually watching movies on it, but should the device's usage be outlawed due to things that it is simply capable of doing?
I recognize that these aren't exactly HUDs, but HUDs have been proven to not significantly increase reaction times, and to decrease the amount of time with your eyes off-road. From every review I've read about Glass online, the display is out of the way unless you want to look at it, and easily ignored when you're focused on something else.
Maybe I'm giving other drivers too much credit. Most people probably will be facebooking on them, not simply using them as a convenient display for GPS guidance.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
... these things are wired directly to the brain, and you don't even need to wear anything that obscured your vision? Still a distraction, of course... but is it still "watching a monitor" when it's inside of your own head?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Your visual focus changes if you look at the road or if you look at what is displayed on google glass, so saying it's a monitor/distraction is true.
Not living in transparency, more of a haze. Everything around you muddled out by the focus taking glasses.
What about the 6" touch screen radio head unit that came standard on my '13 Tacoma? Is that a video screen and I can receive a ticket for that?
Possibly, yes. Does it "produce[s] entertainment"?
What about my digital odometer read out in my dash? That's about the same size as Google Glass and actually requires me to look down and away from the road (along with the speedometer and all the other gauges).
You're not required to look down at your gauges. You can choose to when it's safe to do so, and you want the information. That's a little different to the possibility of a stream of images being projected into your eye no matter where you look. The spoiling of night vision alone would seem to be something to be wary of, never mind the data distraction.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
and what about GPS? shouldn't there be no screen GPS'es, because it should be considered as television?
Looking at pictures of people wearing Google Glass, it seems to me it might block off part of your right (usually dominant) eye vision to the upper right - just where a kid might be waiting to cross the road in front of you, for example?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/16/tech/innovation/google-glass-ticket-dismissed/
more morons not watching the road but reading their email.. To me, stuff like google glass should be banned while driving a car, just because you cannot see if someone is actually using it for directions only or anything else, OR Google should be able to detect if the person is driving and only activate options that are save while driving (just like many build in entertainmentsystems work, blok entertainment while driving)..
But then again, next generation smartglasses won't look different than regular glasses, so the problem will continue.. especially when we also get smart contactlenses..
I am required to look at the speedometer while driving. Very often. I do so often enough that I do consider it a dangerous distraction, and yet not often enough, because I often realize the needle has crept five km/h above the speed limit, and around here, tickets are issued from two km/h above the limit.
To further illustrate your point, subdivision (b) only comes into effect on "equipment when installed in a vehicle". Since this was on her head, and not installed in a vehicle, (b) is irrelevant, as is all it's subdivisions: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (A), and (B).
The only subdivision that is relevant is (a). So, what are the important parts of (a)? Let me paraphrase for emphasis:
A person shall not drive a motor vehicle if ... a video monitor, or ... similar ... is operating and is located ... at a point forward of the back of the driver’s seat, or is operating and ... is visible to the driver...
In other words, in order to be in violation of (a), the screen must be operating. If the cop can't make a case that the screen was on, there is no violation. Of course, "presumed innocent until proven guilty" is easy to say, and easily ignored...
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I frequently drive near those big-ass LED billboards. And these are DESIGNED to be maximally distracting.
If the cop says a snail was doing 200kph, the judge would believe it, even if the snail had 50000000 witnesses and NSA survailance to prove it was doing 5m/hr.
Screw you LEOs. You have no respect in the publics eye.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
...all kind of information onto the windshield, e.g. speed, but also GPS information. Does this also count as watching TV?
Aaah those Fandroids... I mean Explorers, sorry...
Always trying so hard to be part of the next big thing.
But sorry folks, Google Glass won't be it.
Look..
1. Each and every one of us has a responsibility, to each and every one of us , to drive fully engaged with the process of operating our vehicle. Until (fully) self driving cars are a reality this will not change.
2. Occasionally glancing at a dash mounted, voice enabled GPS is not equivalent to studying an HUD map (when you should be driving)
3. We do not need to accommodate the rude and self-centered people who can't (or won't) embrace their responsibilities to the people they share the world with. On the occasion when we do (in moments of weakness) allow these pukes a "live and let live" attitude, we participate in making the world a less elegant, and less safe, place to live. It's past time for all of us to call these pukes on their selfishness. That's part our responsibility to each other too.
4. You kids today.....
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Sooner or later GG with prescription glasses will be common. People will claim GG is the only set of glasses they own and they are required to wear glasses while driving. One poster meant Google should use the accelerometer to switch off the glasses, when in a car and driving. This would probably not nice to fellow passengers. I think Google should add a feature, which allows cops the use a NFC or bluetooth device, which can detect, whether GG was active the last five minutes. Should be enough time to determine, whether the driver used GG or not. This way it might even be possible to distinguish between use cases. Using GPS is allowed, emailing, watching TV etc. is not.
We're overlooking a brilliant move by the court.
"A court commissioner in San Diego dismissed the Google Glass ticket, saying he could find no evidence that the device was in use while Abadie was driving."
You contend that you weren't going 80? Prove it!
Now the ball is in her court to provide the video from the device, thus incriminating herself.
she was in an accident and wearing the device
You're guilty because we think you look guilty, now just sit there quietly while we figure out what you are guilty of.
She was driving 80 in 65. That's guilty, not just looking guilty.
On top of it she's an ass, she just went to court hoping that the cop would not show and used the whole thing as a publicity stunt.
.
...since there were no proof that the device were in function.
...ride a bike.
I found the best way to deal with glassholes in Skyrim was a warhammer!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
He was so dedicated he wanted to die wearing his!
First Glasshole
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
So, as far as I can tell from the comments, most of you think "bitch" is a pretty acceptable throwaway term for women, and that you're all bile-filled because this lady chose to wear a DEACTIVATED Glass while driving.
I would have thought that, as technology (and science fiction) fans, Google Glass, no matter whether it works out as being useful or not, would be something to celebrate - a real stab at the technology of all the futurism we've read about for the last hundred years or so.
This forum has gone from celebrating the idea of the future and whatever that entails, to overt sexism and denigration of anyone trying anything new.
Thank the stars that most of you are support workers and net freaks, and not actually in any kind of forward-thinking technology development. At least that's what I assume from your changing-room diatribes.
A glasshole demonstrates that there is some substance behind the term. I hope they take the device away from her.
if it was showing Global positioning directions, then it falls under (b) (2) or (3) or (B)
I am betting Google has NOT certified the product under any of these. They should go and get certification otherwise GGlasses is going to get a very bad publicity. Google MUST get certification.
She's defending her right to be adulated with IMs and emails while drive a 3000lbs vehicle on public roads. That's it. Take common sense, put it in a box, and throw it over the edge of a cliff. The only thing this proves is that we need automated cars to be introduced as quickly as possible because most people aren't capable of reasoning that they should not be distracted when driving. It's common to find people, every day, backing out of parking spots while talking on the phone or having loud, animated, conversations while driving on the freeway. Driving is a boring and tedious activity and people just don't have the discipline to focus on doing it safely.
She personally one but the judge did say that glass use falls within the law. So basically, she got off but don't do it again.
I'm a "Glass Explorer". I'd like to set the record straight on a few things:
- Glass is not a full-field HUD. The display is very small and located in the upper right hand periphery of your field of vision. It interferes with your view of the road about as much as the rear-view mirror in a typical car.
- Glancing at the Glass display is about equivalent to glancing at one's rear-view mirror, in terms of time and inattention to the road.
- Battery life on Glass is, frankly, not so good. The display turns itself off at every opportunity to preserve battery.
- On a stock, unmodified Glass, bystanders can indeed see if the display is on - you'll see the 'backside' of whatever is being displayed in the little half-mirror.
- Most Glass users have it set up so that tilting their head upward turns the display on. While I don't know this for a fact, what probably happened was that Ms. Abadie sat in the driver's seat of her car and looked up at the cop, the Glass display turned on, and the cop saw it, didn't like it, and added it to her ticket.
- Ms. Abadie was cleared on both charges. She hired a law firm that specializes in fighting speeding tickets.
- Google did not pay for Ms. Abadie's defense and - aside from perhaps telling her "good luck" - did nothing to support her.
- While I do not know Ms. Abadie personally, I've been following this case since it began, and from everything I've seen, the characterization of her as "entitled" etc is just plain wrong. There are 30,000 Glass Explorers, and that's enough to statistically guarantee that some of them will be "Glassholes". But the vast majority of Glass Explorers are decent folks who simply like tech and gadgets and who are optimistic and even idealistic about Glass and the future of wearable technology. I think it is commendable that Ms. Abadie has attempted to channel her 15 Minutes to support a cause that she believes in.
- Finally: yes, it would be possible for someone to abuse Glass and watch videos while driving. There is no shortage of things, from make-up mirrors to cell phones to MP3 players to fast-food hamburgers, that can be abused by an irresponsible driver. But on the whole, used correctly and with the proper software, an intelligent HUD such as Glass has the potential to make driving *safer*.
Throwing her in jail for a month would waste far more of YOUR tax money than the court time the case would take. Since the case was dismissed, it probably took under five minutes. We're talking multiple orders of magnitude more money. Especially since the court would still be necessary to sentence her to jail (which would take far more than five minutes of court time).
In Oregon, it's currently illegal to talk while driving without a hands-free device.
Despite this, when I'm at the front of the line at a red light, waiting to turn left, I see lots of people on the phone, holding it up to their head. I see people on phones driving (usually speeding) through residential streets. I see people staring down at their phone at a red light after it's just turned green and they're still not moving yet. On the highway I see people driving slower than the speed limit and when I pass them - yup, they're on a phone. I see people in grocery store parking lots doing strange things, blasting through crosswalks and stop signs in front of kids instead of stopping (even with kids of their own in the back of their car). Basically, it's really easy to spot people on phones while they're driving because they're driving badly in an obvious way, and there are a lot of them around, despite it being illegal.
OK, so we get everybody a hands-free device and.....well, actually, no. There's a bunch of research that shows that it's the talking that causes the tunnel-vision and slowness, not the fact that you're holding a phone. So hands-free devices don't actually help, even though the law sort of implies that they do.
Personally, I won't talk on a phone while driving, and if I find myself on the phone with someone who is driving, I politely ask them to call back when they're done driving and hang up.
In theory, talking to passengers is OK because they can stop talking when traffic is tricky, but in practice I've missed exits while talking to passengers (I'm sure you have too).
So that's the baseline on my view of phone use while driving, so you understand where I'm coming from.
When I'm driving and have my phone in my pocket, I get emails and texts and the phone beeps and I ignore it.
When I'm driving and have Glass on my head, I get emails and texts and glass beeps and I ignore it.
When I have Glass on my head, it does slightly block my view of the ceiling of my vehicle, but not anything out any window. If the display somehow ended up between my eye and the road, it's transparent, so I can see through it - but it's not in the way, it's up on the ceiling.
I do have a GPS that sits on on the dash. I find the audio reminders to turn to be very useful, and sometimes the map showing the lanes is useful to glance at to figure out which lane I need to be in. The rest of the time, the moving map actually draws my eye to it instead of the road, and the audio is kind of annoying to non-drivers or kids sleeping in the back of the car.
I've used the GPS in Glass while driving - it is *way less distracting* than my on-dash gps - the dings are very clear, the audio directions are great, and the screen *shuts off entirely* while on the straightaway. You can't view texts or emails while in gps mode, at most you can turn on the map again by tilting your head. When you're near a turn, the screen turns back on, you can glance at which lane you need to be in, just like you'd glance at the GPS on the dash, and you make your turn.
Lately I've also seen a rash of drivers trying to make the exit after they've just missed it - they end up on the left shoulder of the exit, narrowly missing the concrete at the diagonal intersection. I'm not sure what's going on with them (I'd guess they're on the phone, too and are panicking about missing the exit), but a GPS to either warn them that the exit is coming up, or allow them to relax and find their way again after the next exit is way less dangerous than making their own new lane, and Glass is the least intrusive best GPS I've ever used.
the judge just side stepped the question
and handwritten at that, how quaint. Must be low budget :)
She can whine all she wants. She can even pee her panties for all I care. She was doing 80 in a 65 mph zone. There is no excuse for that. If the judge decides to add $200 to $300 to her fine for wearing Google Glass, great! If they can prove that she was using it at the time they should add $600 to $1000 to her fine. Todays high speed traffic is no place for texting, talking on a cellphone or even playing with Google Glass while driving. If she had caused an accident in which someone was seriously injured or killed, could she talk her way out of manslaughter charges?
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!