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Technological Solution For Texting While Driving Struggles For Traction
An anonymous reader writes: While legislators and police try to tackle the epidemic of distracted driving through education, regulation, and enforcement, Scott Tibbitts is trying to solve it through engineering. He developed a small device which, when plugged into a vehicle, would determine which phone belonged to the driver and shut off its texting and voice call capabilities. "The telematics box sends a wireless message that the car is moving. The phone sends its own message about its location. Both sets of information — from the car and phone — are sent to Katasi's servers. Then, an algorithm weighs the incoming data with other information, like the location of the phones belonging to all the people who drive the car and the starting point of the trip; if the trip starts at Junior's high school, and mom and dad's phones are at work, the driver has been identified — Junior is driving."
The problem is that Tibbitts can't get anyone interested in setting up a system to make these devices ubiquitous. Consumers can't be sold on such a product: all evidence suggests people are increasingly unwilling to be cut off from constant communication. So, he tried working with carriers. Sprint partnered with Tibbitts long enough to test the device, but they were afraid of the legal risks involved. Now, Tibbitts is nursing the technology along, looking for a way to get it into cars and make people safer.
The problem is that Tibbitts can't get anyone interested in setting up a system to make these devices ubiquitous. Consumers can't be sold on such a product: all evidence suggests people are increasingly unwilling to be cut off from constant communication. So, he tried working with carriers. Sprint partnered with Tibbitts long enough to test the device, but they were afraid of the legal risks involved. Now, Tibbitts is nursing the technology along, looking for a way to get it into cars and make people safer.
If someone has so little self-control as to be unable to avoid talking or texting while driving, why are we allowing them to drive in the first place?
The energy in a 4,000lb vehicle moving at 40-60 mph is considerable.
Perhaps we need stricter drivers license requirements?
Hey I've got a technical solution to this problem, too: TURN OFF THE MOTHERFUCKING PHONE!
I predict idiots putting their phones in the passenger seat, and leaning over in addition to their previous phone use. Unless this is a device that can be unplugged, in which case they'll unplug it and then use their phone.
The technological solution to this problem is self-driving cars.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
How about we just put lights on top of cars that light up brightly when a text message is being sent from anyone in the car? Then the rest of the drivers on the road can avoid those idiots, as the ones who have texting passengers in the car (aside from taxis and such) are generally no better than the ones who are attempting to text while driving.
The bright light would also make it easier for cops to know who to pull over when they are doing enhanced patrols for these shit-heads as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Fines and public education work better than a technical solution to stupidity. People understand when it hits their wallet directly and when their phones are confiscated.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
See, here's the thing. Fuck Scott Tibbitts.
I don't want his technology. There are so many scenarios where this would unnecessarily screw up my life. What if I'm driving and my wife wants to use my phone to answer a call? That's just one.
More importantly, my car has a built in hands free that I can operate by voice. Why should I not be allowed to use it.
If we really want to make the roads safer, give me the power to arrest the dipshits that fly around me on the Interstate doing 20 miles above the speed limit and changing lanes like they are at Daytona.
This is the wrong solution. People hate driving in general. Before texting was a thing, I would observe people reading the NYT (full blown page open in front of their steering wheel) while commuting to work.
Driving is boring, and people use whatever means possible to give themselves something interesting to do while it's occurring. Put the research into voice recognition. It's always been easier to talk than to type.
To call the police and report unsafe drivers. Why would anyone want to take that away from me?
A big reason why a technical solution like doesn't work (isn't accepted by the masses) is because it requires someone knowing the location of the phones. In this article, it says it checks the location specifically to determine who the likely driver is. I'm not going to give a third party who is not strictly regulated in how and what can be done with this information permission to track my location 24/7 in order to tell if I'm driving my car or someone else is just to disable communications.
Normally I don't encourage people who type what you did...
But in this case, I'll make an exception... yea, what you said...
I voted for Obama. What was the alternative, again?
Another big government stooge... Both sucked, so I didn't vote for either...
Fines and public education work better than a technical solution to stupidity.
Unfortunately it appears that fines and education have been completely ineffective on the matter. I lived in a place for several years that would have annual campaigns to discourage drivers from texting while driving, followed by announced enhanced enforcement of the offense.
So what happened? Were people at least smart enough to send fewer messages during the enhanced enforcement period? No. Not even close. Every year the tallies went up.
People understand when it hits their wallet directly
For one, most of the people doing this are young and their insurance - and phone bill - are paid by the parents. So nothing is hitting their own wallets directly.
and when their phones are confiscated.
I have yet to hear of anyone having their phones confiscated. Although again as the offenders far more often than not are getting everything they need from their parents, confiscation won't do much but prevent them from sending messages for the next 24 hours or so.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
People won't chance it if costs as much as seatbelt or redlight tickets.
Those aren't expensive here...
$75 city fine for running a red light, $154 for not having a seat belt on...
Neither of those are high enough to make many people stop.
Speeding? Holy crap that has gotten expensive... Try $400+ for going 10 over...
This seems ripe with technical flaws, first it assumes that only known persons would ever operate the vehicle; secondly it presumes that the owner can't let anyone else in the vehicle use their phone.
This is completely ignoring the fact that anyone in the car could be using the phone. There have been plenty of times I've been in the car when the driver gets a call and I answer it, or call someone from their phone because they had the number pre-programmed, or I'm looking up direction (or doing anything else) on their phone because their's is better than mine. While phones have become sort-of personal devices (for all you upper class families who can afford the luxury of having smart phones and data plans for each family member), they are still easily shared between people and strangers.
This still ignores the fact that the parent's phone could have been forgotten at work and Jr is not driving. There are so many other things wrong with this tech. It should be left to die.
It's 9 and 3 if you have an airbag, according to the NHTSA.
I'm skeptical as to whether there has been any benefit to 10 and 2 since power steering became common.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
His "solution" is utter bullshit, trying to capitalize on "think of the children", helicopter parenting, and potential legislation.
It's usually easy to tell whether a driver involved in an accident was texting and the penalties can be stiff (including manslaughter or vehicular homicide).
Furthermore, the right company to partner with are insurance companies, but they already have a better mechanism for monitoring in place: they don't care whether you text per se, they care whether you drive erratically for any reason. For lower insurance rates, you can agree to monitoring. Nice voluntary solution and incentive.
Finally, if there is a technical solution to be developed, it's a good voice-based, hands-free texting app that lets you text with a Bluetooth headset. Phone calls and voice interfaces are legal in most places, and will likely remain so. That's also something many people would use voluntarily because it is both safer and convenient.
Another engineer who thinks he can cobble up a single technological solution to a social problem.
This is the same sort of hubris that has legislators passing random crap to 'fix' a problem with zero understanding of the problem or the consequences of their solution. It's arrogance. For one, it assumes you're smarter (or at least sharper) than the people you're trying to control.
(Disclaimer: I'm an engineer.)
Anyone understands how this works? There are a lot of data features of my phone that pair with driving. GPS being an obvious one with traffic updates. Another is podcast downloads. And if those data networks are open then I assume most texting services other than SMS work. SMS I figure for most people is a tiny percentage of their traffic at this point. So unless they are blacklisting particular services...?
And of course phone calls have to work: reliable phone while driving is the main reason I own a cell phone in the first place. I assume I'm not alone in this.
I think easy would be adding to automated responses for all messaging services, "Driving, need to give you a long response, call my cell."
Instead of a technology solution, just ratchet up distracted driving to DUI costs.
If the officer sees you in the left lane doing under the speed limit while staring at a cellphone with thumbs twitching - pull them over, impound the car, and fine the driver $20,000 and suspend their license.for two years on a first offense.
Problem solved.
I'll await the downmodding of the folks that think it's ok to let go of the steering wheel to text while on an interstate and in the left lane.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
localized cell disruption at the drivers seat while the car is in motion or was 1 minute ago. And if the cone of silence is disabled, a jolt of 50,000 volts starts hitting the driver's ass when the car is moving and the cone is disabled. How many parents would buy into this?
Sure, every year the tallies went up - but so did the number of users. Hit them with $500 - $1000 fines for distracted driving, impound the vehicle for 30 days, 9 demerit points, and permanently confiscate the phone, and they'll be so much less likely to repeat. And their friends will get the message soon enough.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
People *like* to text and drive, and talk and drive,
Passengers like to text or call and ride. Or situations like where my wife can check my phone when I am driving, and more often than not answer it depending on who's calling. And that is not getting into handsfree, voice controlled options.
The smartphone crowd assumes they own the user's eyeballs. They don't. What's needed is better voice integration. You should be able to call, receive calls, text, and receive texts via a Bluetooth headset with the phone in your pocket.
Android sucks at this. My Samsung flip-phone had better voice dialing than my Android phone. Wildfire, which is from 1997, did this quite well. But it was really expensive to do back then, and was priced as high as $250/month. Then Microsoft bought Wildfire and abandoned the product.
However those ideas and Scott's device completely ignore what people want:
Either way nobody wants it, and neither ISPs nor the Government are going to make friends by mandating the technology. The underlying problem is that people who text while driving don't believe they are being unsafe. Hence the solution is education and fines, not big-brother style "track the entire family and force them to comply" technology.
@Scott: a business model is meant to involve customers, sales, and revenue. Supply and demand and all that. You ain't got no demand. Move on.
Instead of making it more difficult to text while driving - why not make it easier? People are going to do it so why not have speech to text conversions and heads up displays so people don't have to take their hands or eyes off the wheel and road. The technology is already out there, people will use it even when it is irresponsible to do so - so instead why not just make it safer and easier so that people can get on with driving?
There is no law out there that has more influence than a partner, child or obligation has to take the risk in the first place.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
A Darwinian solution to the problem is right on track!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I sometimes use the driver's phone to send a text message (we're stuck and traffic and will be late), or use the GPS function (again, on the driver's phone).
Unless it can determine if the phone's in the driver's or passenger's hands, it's a very bad idea.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
What if you're using a tethered handsfree device to call the police? Why does it need to remember all this stuff instead of relying on a triangulating antenna system? What happens if there's 2 GSM/LTE devices in the front left?
The problem isn't how do we make people safer drivers.
The problem is how do we make people NOT the drivers. Then we don't have to worry about whether they are texting.
I'm not convinced that this is a problem that needs a solution, but to me, a simple solution to the problem is this:
Start the car with the cell phone. In that way, which cell phone is associated with the driver is simple.
A more detailed disclosure follows:
Instead of starting the car with a key or a button, start the car by sending a text message. The car then blocks sending text messages by that phone for as long as the car is moving, (or in an alternative embodiment, as long as the car is operating). This prevents that particular phone from being used in whatever prohibited manner is desired, such as no texting when the car is moving (or when the car is operating).
In an alternative embodiment, an application running on the cell phone is started to start the car operating, and beginning making the cell phone operate in a restricted manner. In an alternative embodiment, well-known cryptographic techniques are employed by the software application to start the car in a secure manner. Thus, the car replaces a physical or electronic key. As a side effect, the phone in control by the driver is identified for restricted operation.
Similarly, in an alternative embodiment, the phone can be prevented from other prohibited uses, such as (but limited to) web browsing, non-hands free calling, and so forth. When the car is turned off (with button, or ignition key), normal operation of the phone can resume.
Technologically, this is most easily enforced by the phone itself, under command from the car. In an alternative embodiment, the car can block attempted communication by that particular phone advertising itself as a micro-cell-tower that only that particular phone connects to.
In an alternative embodiment, the car can signal that the phone should enter a lower-power operating condition, and take over monitoring communications on behalf of the phone, such as by advertising signals matching what the phone would normally employ to maintain cell-tower communications and wake up the phone to a higher-power state when an incoming call or incoming message arrives. In an alternative embodiment, this operating mode would use car hardware to maintain hands-free communications mode in replacement to the normal communications modes of the cell phone.
All patent rights reserved. Contact me for licensing.
Although again as the offenders far more often than not are getting everything they need from their parents, confiscation won't do much but prevent them from sending messages for the next 24 hours or so.
These are people who can't go for 10 minutes without texting. Think what 24hours will do.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
It seems dangerous to me -- I don't text while I drive, but I've futzed with my phone to make a call or change some settings and even that seems like it could easily cause problems.
That being said, not a day goes by that I'm driving that I don't see one or more people texting and driving and yet from 2006 to 2011, fatal motor vehicle crashes went down in the US every year.
If texting is as dangerous ("think of the children", "we have to do something", etc) as its made out to be and as prevalent as it seems to be, why are motor vehicle fatalities going down? Shouldn't the "epidemic" of texting be pushing them up, especially if its so dangerous?
There is no such thing as distracted driving! There are bad drivers, incompetent drivers, morons, assholes and people who should never of been given a license in first place but there is nothing called distracted driving. Just because you can't use your cellphone and drive doesn't I can't, I could have 20 naked women all grinding me and still drive a prefect straight line well taking in everything in my environment, which doesn't mean that if another person, in the same situation, crashes it's distracted driving. Just as video games don't cause violence, Atheism doesn't cause a loss of morals, cell phones don't make you a bad driver, you either are a bad driver or you're not.
All this talk about how to handle cell phones in the car is just silly, don't do anything! It's not up to the car or police to control phone use in car, it's up to the driver to realize that they have no control of a car well texting or calling. Yes people have died as a result of someone using a cell phone well driving, but in reality they died because the person behind the wheel was given a license when in fact they shouldn't of been. A cell phone has never caused an accident, only a driver can cause an accident, can we start calling out piss poor driving and stop trying make excuses. Bad driving is the problem, don't make your cellphone take the fall for the fact you can't drive.
"If it saves the life of an imbecile who can't trouble to buckle up it MAY be worthwhile"
Aren't we just keeping them in the gene pool and overall adding to the eventual enfeeblement of the species re intelligence?
Seems to me that we need to have a lot less of this saving of the lives of imbeciles. E.g. Forest Service is increasingly having to mount rescue operation to save idiots who climb part way up a mountain wearing a t-shirt, jeans and loafers and no equipment except a cell phone.
I press the button at the cross walk and wait for the little man to light up saying it's OK to cross.
And I still--on an almost weekly basis--get run over by people coasting up trying to make a right-on-red without actually a) stopping or b) checking for pedestrians standing right in front of them.
I have an app that reads incoming texts to me over my in-car bluetooth and lets me respond by voice. How does this account for that?
"The problem is that Tibbitts can't get anyone interested in setting up a system to make these devices ubiquitous. Consumers can't be sold on such a product: all evidence suggests people are increasingly unwilling to be cut off from constant communication."
Hrm. I wonder how that same consumer will feel about being "cut off" sitting in a jail cell for vehicular manslaughter.
I only list that here for reference. The electric chair isn't enough of a deterrent for people these days. After all, everyone thinks they are an excellent texter.
Since you asked...no. Too many people have the "I'm special" attitude; it applies to speed limits, texting, wearing seat belts, you name it.
"all evidence suggests people are increasingly unwilling to be cut off from constant communication"... wouldn't it make MORE sense then to promote technology that allows you to be in communication without having to take your eyes off the road... like the same way you can talk to a passenger in the vehicle whilst driving?
I dunno, Apple's 'Siri Eyes Free' and initiatives by others are one route to this whilst driverless cars are the other. Engineers seem to pick losing battles by creating technology with a 'computer says no' mindset instead of focussing on technology that tries to safely accommodate what people want to do.
I for one hope Scott Tibbitts fails in this endeavour and learns enough from it to focus on progressive and enhancing technology rather than restrictive technology.
I do not need an increase in the number of ways for my communication channels to be closed regardless of how benevolent the reason. I need more guarantees that my communication channels will be open and available when I need them. Not deactivated by law enforcement or the military or the government, not jammed by tech savvy hobbyists, and certainly not deactivated by an automobile.
Maybe it's possible to identify driver distraction with a vision based system, rather then intercepting the cell phone signal? One or two IR cameras on the driver, they know when the driver is not looking forward. If you look away/down for a long enough period (based on speed of car), there is distraction. None of the privacy or passenger issues compared to approaches that target the cell phone signals. What the system does when it actually identifies distraction would be the next question. Alarm, small throttle decrease.... Or maybe it summarizes the data and presents to the driver/passenger on the dashboard - an attentiveness display. Good for new drivers, and sleepy ones too.
Better enforcement of "drive right". (on the highway, you pass on the left, drive on the right, it is safer than what we do in the US, which is to drive all over the road at random speeds)
Except on those parts of a highway that are inside city limits and have city speed limits. There you're likely to see a cyclist in the left hand lane for a block or so before the cyclist makes a left turn.
I've read about this guy's idea, and I can see why it won't catch on. It feels very nanny state. It seems like if we're going to mandate technology to stop people from using cell phones while driving it should be handsfree technology. If we give teens (for example) a good handsfree alternative to texting in the car, they'll use it. So, let's not spend the money trying to jam communications, something that feels very nannyish and is likely to be worked around by drivers. Let's spend the money and give people and incentive to put down the phone and drive. Handsfree texting and calling would do this. Ford Sync does this, but the system is quite inferior to Siri or Google's voice recognition.
But cell phone using drivers don't drive like this. They drive slower, if anything. They don't speed, if anything. They don't weave, if anything. They don't run traffic lights or stop signs, if anything.
What they do is not pay attention. They don't realize the light has changed. They don't realize they are going slow in the fast lane. And they suddenly change lanes -- typically from the extreme left to the extreme right lane -- when their cell phone GPS tells them that they need to turn right now.
Cell phone using drivers are 50% "just" annoying other drivers, and 50% the deadliest thing on the road.
I come here for the love
I'll take the American approach any day.
I come here for the love
Root phone. Remove nanny state functionality. End of thread.
"Both sets of information â" from the car and phone â" are sent to Katasi's servers. Then, an algorithm weighs the incoming data with other information, like the location of the phones belonging to all the people who drive the car and the starting point of the trip; if the trip starts at Junior's high school, and mom and dad's phones are at work, the driver has been identified â" Junior is driving."
I mean come on. In order for you cell phone to not allow you texting while you drive, you and everyone in your family would need to share their location with some crap company with no data privacy regulation at all (we are talking about a U.S. company after all). I wouldn't be interested in such a product even if it was free. Its stupid and idiotic and ridiculous.
The only, I repeat ONLY situation when access to the phone or the navigation should be restcieted while the car is moving is when there is a single person in the vehicle, and that could be checked with seat sensors and cameras, no external company would need to collect you and your family's locations just to decide whether it's you who's driving the damn car.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
What if a system like red light cameras were devised? Snap a picture of a car that has a moving cell phone signal. If the photo clearly shows the driver engaging in distracted driving send them a court summons.
None of us condone running red lights, but do we like red light cameras? Have they made the roads safer?
Greed is the root of all evil.
Well that's not even a little troubling. I mean, one stop shopping - a central location that stores data on where everyone is all the time, and who is driving where any time someone gets in a car. All because some people drive while texting? That's not overkill at all. Nuh uh.
Betcha law enforcement has a woody about this.
The NSA doesn't need to do covert data surveillance. They just need to start up companies like Google and this Katasi that can do it all right in the open.
Errrr.... wait....
Every discussion I've read on this issue ignores the fact that there could be passengers in the car, and there's no reason to disable their phones. Very much the opposite, in fact, because they can be looking up addresses, getting directions, etc.
if the trip starts at Junior's high school, and mom and dad's phones are at work, the driver has been identified — Junior is driving.
What if all three phones are in the car? Which one does it disable then?
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
Sanctions that severe would also cause the immediate loss of a job - since you can't get there, and you can't call and tell them you have a problem
Public transit and a pay phone.
We already seize vehicles on the spot for other offences. And the punishment - losing your cell phone - certainly fits the crime - endangering others by texting while driving.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Bear in mind that for most people, they perceive that if they do not vote for the lesser of the two evils to give it as many votes as possible then the vote for that party will be split, and that the party they actually want in the least would end up winning by a landslide... They perceive such as vote as being wasted, whereas they believe that if enough people at least voted for the lesser of two evils between the "main two" instead of splitting their vote across arguably much better parties, whose platforms they might even more strongly be in alliance and maybe even knowingly agree with, then a party that they may perceive as exponentially worse would have the greatest chance of not getting in.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The energy in a 4,000lb vehicle moving at 40-60 mph is considerable.
The [kinetic] energy in a 4,000 lb (1814.37 kg) vehicle moving at 40-60 mph (17.8816-26.8224 m/s) is 213,948-481382 ftlbf (290-653 kJ).
This is equivalent to between 69 and 156 g of TNT.
For a sense of perspective, this amount of TNT is roughly the size of a contemporary smartphone (a bit bigger than the iPhone 6 Plus on the high end, a bit smaller than the iPhone 5S on the low end).
Since Dynamite has about 60% more energy density than TNT, this is between a quarter stick and a half stick of Dynamite.
That's how much kinetic energy your small SUV has when moving at highway speeds. You hit the full stick of Dynamite mark at 72.4 mph in your 4,000 lb vehicle.
A car that has a curb weight near 4,000 lbs is the Jaguar XJ (X300).
It took the equivalent of nearly 129 million Jaguar XJ (X300) cars, each crashed into an unyielding obstacle at 72.4 mph, to carve the Panama Canal.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.