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Using Handheld Phone GPS While Driving Is Legal In California
jfruh writes "Steven R. Spriggs was ticketed and fined $165 for violating California's law on cell phone use while operating a motor vehicle, which states that you can only use a phone while driving if you have a hands-free device. But he appealed the judgement, arguing that the law only applied to actually talking on the phone, whereas he had been caught checking his GPS app. Now an appeals court has agreed with him. The law in question was enacted in 2006, before the smartphone boom."
No reason why a windshield or dash mount cant be required for using the phone as a gps.
If he was only pulled over because the officer observed him using an electronic device then the driver was correct. If he was pulled over for dangerous or reckless driving while using a device then the office wrote him the wrong ticket.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Looking at the screen and interacting with it is obviously safer than holding the phone to your ear and talking to someone. Don't be an idiot. You're operating a two ton machine at speed. Keep your eyes on the road.
Steven R. Spriggs, the appellant, held his mobile phone in his hand to use the mapping application to find his way around the congestion when STOPPED in heavy traffic
This person was not moving at the time. On top of that, if the phone had been a Garmin GPS instead of a phone the ticket would never have been issued even though the user would have been using both devices in the same way.
This kind of stuff is just stupid.
Read the article, there is a relevant clause of the legislation that is open to interpretation. This is why we have courts, so that the interpretation of laws can progress with changes to technology, society, etc.
How are police supposed to distinguish between drivers texting and drivers using their GPS? Texting requires hands-free operation, so should using a GPS.
Studies have shown that hands free mountings do NOT reduce accidents.
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Even better: Make the navigation app stop responding to input whenever the phone is moving.
The phone can't distinguish between the driver using the phone while it's moving and a passenger using the phone while it's moving. I, for one, would be very annoyed if my phone stopped working whenever I was riding in someone else's car, or on public transportation. There's also the fact that this misfeature would actively prevent a passenger from assisting the driver with navigation functions.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
So you suggest people stopping on the freeway and waiting until they can make changes to their device? How about we just make the driving test harder so not every shit driver can get one
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Stop and go traffic is among the most accident prone situations.
This might be true. But accidents are not all equal. You are MUCH more likely to die
or seriously injure someone while driving at high speed than in slow stop and go traffic
because of both the speed of collision as well as reaction time.
This is exactly the issue I have with my Subaru BRZ. If the car is moving, you can't enter information into the GPS. Thats all well and good when there is only me in the car, but stopping my passenger from using it is asinine! I hit this issue on a road trip, I wanted my passenger to try and find somewhere up ahead for us to eat (in the country with no decent cell data connection). I ended up having to pull off the highway and pull over just to find a nearby restaurant... not impressed.
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. - Frank Herbert
This person was not moving at the time. On top of that, if the phone had been a Garmin GPS instead of a phone the ticket would never have been issued even though the user would have been using both devices in the same way.
I think that's giving more credit to the cop than is deserved. As you said, the guy was stopped. The cop is already ignoring the spirit of the law. I doubt the cop would pay attention to the specific lettering of the law which would draw a distinction between GPS only and cell phones.
Except many studies have shown that hands-free phone operation is about just as bad as hands-on.
Most of the distraction-based accidents are caused by people picking the wrong time to do something, even simple things like changing radio station, heating/AC settings or checking their speedometer.
Hands-free does not prevent people from letting themselves get distracted by or otherwise focusing their attention on the wrong things at the wrong time. Some people have suggested locking out non-essential controls while vehicles are in movement so drivers have no choice but to focus on the road but going to such an extreme would likely become a grievance for many people and cause its own lot of problems such as passengers being unable to access those controls either.
Ideally, people should be able to gauge circumstances and their own abilities to decide the most appropriate moments to do something safely but most people grossly over-estimate their abilities and the safety margins around them so we end up with stiff restrictions to eliminate most variables.
The danger of inattention, though, is linked to the speed of the vehicle. No movement, no extra danger. A stopped car is a stopped car whether the driver is checking his mirrors every second or asleep. If the situation changes and he doesn't notice that he can become un-stopped, I'm sure the drivers around him will be sure to let him know, but until then, his behavior does not affect anyone's danger level.
people would quickly learn to drive around with a bag of potatoes.