Wireless Invention Jams Teen Drivers' Cell Calls 232
alphadogg writes "University of Utah researchers have invented technology that could come to be embraced by teenagers with the same enthusiasm they have for curfews and ID checks. And like those things, it could save their lives. Key2SafeDriving technology uses RFID or Bluetooth wireless capabilities to issue signals from car keys to cell phones to prevent drivers from talking on their phones or texting while driving. A company called Accendo LC of Kaysville, Utah has licensed the technology and is working to build it into commercial devices that could be on the market next year. The company is sorting out how to bring the technology to market, but one possibility is that it would be made available through cell phone service companies and could also be tied in with insurance companies, which might offer discounts for users."
Great Idea!! (Score:5, Insightful)
So if she is carjacked and raped, at least the assailant won't be burning up her Roll Over minutes!!
Re:Great Idea!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not apply this feature to everyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So... stuck in car pileup = no cell phone 911? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently nobody bothered reading the article. The device is coupled with the cellphone and is provided by the cellphone company. It doesn't jam the phone it simply tells the phone not to make or receive calls. It does allow 911 calls.
Wheewww (Score:1, Insightful)
I thought we might actually have to raise our kids right. Thank God for this technology!! Now I can ignore my kids again.
911, but not Mom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if 911 is allowed, other highly relevant calls cannot be made.
This is like speed bumps: sounds good, until the ambulance or cop can't get to you in time because they have to go from 50 to 5 MPH periodically in the area, or can't move because they bottomed out the vehicle after hitting one at 50 after not seeing it.
How about facing the reality that bad things happen to stupid people doing stupid things, and teach kids to not be stupid? Proactively blocking their every move because they might do something dumb does not turn them into responsible adults.
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't teach stupid people not to be stupid. They can't learn in the first place, that's why they're stupid!
useless & easy to circumvent (Score:5, Insightful)
So the biggest problem I see with this is that it essentially requires the driver to voluntarily use a matching key and cell phone that are sold as a set.
If the driver were going to voluntarily not talk on the cell phone, they could just not do it and save the money.
If you give this to a teenager and think this means they won't be texting or talking on a cell phone while driving, you need to spend more time with teenagers. As soon as there's another person with a cell phone in the car with them, they can borrow that cell phone to talk or text. If they're more devious (and have the money), they'll just get themselves another cell phone. If they really want to talk or text while driving, they will. This isn't going to stop them unless they're all alone in the car and very conscientious to begin with.
Giving it to adults as some sort of insurance incentive? That's a laugh. Adults are even worse than kids about working the system.
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about facing the reality that bad things happen to stupid people doing stupid things, and teach kids to not be stupid?
I'm all for it. Stupid people should face the consequences of their actions. Teens who talk on their cells while driving are about as stupid as they come. Let 'em have it... I just don't want to be in the oncoming lane when they finally learn their lesson.
hey naysayers (Score:1, Insightful)
you know what? this is a good thing
having your life taken away by a teenager yakking on their cellphone is a much greater impingement on your freedom
How Many Kids (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:3, Insightful)
My perception has been a little different. I've found EVERYONE to drive like idiots lately. I even have idiot moments.
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, preventing them from learning by experience is likely to have the opposite effect of the one intended.
You're absolutely right. I just don't want your learning experience to end in a head-on crash with my car.
Cars are dangerous. Driving your car is probably the most dangerous thing you do every day (unless your a Marine or firefighter) for yourself and others. You really think society should just toss kids the keys and let them learn on their own?
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah.. those stupid teens.. because adults never drive stupid.
Teens are a group of people who have a very high rate of accidents compared to the general population. Society has no problem restricting the driving privileges of other high risk groups: the elderly, the vision impaired, and the drunk. What's so different about singling out one more high-risk group and protecting ourselves from the collateral damage they are more likely to cause?
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate speed bumps too, but "bad things happen to stupid people doing stupid things" ignores the corollary that "bad things happen to people who get hit by cars driven by stupid people doing stupid things"
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have no problem curbing the elderly? You're full of shit, and every wreck with them getting confused and barreling through a farmer's market proves it. Every time AARP shoots down a law requiring not revocation on age, but TESTING after a certain age to ensure safety proves you wrong.
They go after teens because teens have no rights or lobbies. Other groups fight like hell because they're made of people that have lobbies, money, power, and rights. Teens just take the brunt of everybody's shit because they have no rights or money.
That's not to say they're not bad drivers; they often are. It's just that claiming there's some kind of fairness on the issue is pretty myopic.
I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Please cite some examples of situations where 911 is not appropriate but yet you must make a phone call while driving? A call so important (but not important enough for 911) that it will actually make you safer if you do it while you are still driving instead of pulling to the side of the road or waiting for a stoplight.
That's all fine and good until stupid people start killing innocent people [realtechnews.com]. The problem is that they often bring other people into the equation.
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time AARP shoots down a law requiring not revocation on age, but TESTING after a certain age to ensure safety proves you wrong.
All it proves is that the elderly turnout on election day dwarfs that of any other age group.
Teens just take the brunt of everybody's shit because they have no rights or money.
Teens are also one of a few groups that everyone has been a member of at one point. You'd think with all of us former teens, still scarred from society's relentless abuse, would rally around the cause of eliminating teenage oppression. But we don't. You know why? Most of us look back at how unbelievably stupid, reckless and irresponsible we were as teenagers. With age, comes some perspective.
It's just that claiming there's some kind of fairness on the issue is pretty myopic.
I never said it was fair, only justified.
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because unlike other high-risk groups, teens get into more accidents largely due to mere inexperience - The cure for which involves, of all things, doing the activity they suck at more, not less.
Grandma's eyesight won't ever come back, but young drivers will learn when to pay more attention to the road than to their phone/radio/whatever.
Re:An alternative suggestion (Score:4, Insightful)
Another question is: Can I trust your kids? Seeing as we're on the same road and all.
Re:An alternative suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could, you know, trust your kids.
Trust isn't a boolean. There are many things I trust my kids with, but there are other things I don't. In particular, I don't trust my kids to always show good judgment, ESPECIALLY where their friends are involved. The classic parent question "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?" is so classic precisely because the honest answer to that question is often "Yes!".
Another area where kids' judgment is often poor is around their own safety. Most kids have only a vague sense of their own mortality and fragility, at best. As a result, they often run risks that adults would not. Worse, kids are new drivers, and new drivers often underestimate the difficulty of operating a vehicle. The controls are simple, the traffic rules aren't bad... how hard can it be? It takes a few years to truly understand in your bones that brief inattention can combine with someone else's mistake to KILL YOU.
Yet another issue is that kids are generally very impatient, and will often make foolish decisions because they want something NOW.
15-17 year-old kids driving with cellphones combine all of these in one dangerous package. Talking to their friends is just about the most important thing in the world to them, and they want to know NOW whether or not Marinda thinks Jaden is hot, and they're completely certain of their ability to talk or even text while driving, never mind the fact that they've only got a few dozen hours behind the wheel.
Now, I can tell my kids until I'm blue in the face the reasons they should not use their phone while driving, and I can even order them not to, threaten to take their phone and/or car privileges away if I ever find out they did it, etc., but none of that will work, because of one simple fact:
They think I'm wrong.
Moreover, they think I'm stupid, that I don't get it, and that I don't understand them. The same thing virtually every teenager who has ever lived has thought of their parents.
In general, that's actually a good thing. Questioning and even disregarding your parents' opinions and advice is an important part of growing up, of establishing your own identity and learning to think for yourself. I fully expect that my kids are going to disregard much of what I say (though it still irks me), and to a large extent I'm perfectly happy that they're going to make mistakes and bear the consequences of those mistakes.
There are, however, exceptions. Areas in which I do NOT want to allow them to make the mistakes they want to make, because I know what the consequences are.
For example, I don't want them making mistakes that may kill them dead. There's no chance to learn from such mistakes. Likewise, even though they're survivable, I really don't want my son to get hooked on crack, or my daughter to get knocked up (or my son to knock up some other girl). The consequences are too severe, and the lesson can be learned by observing others' mistakes. No need to make every possible error.
Should I simply trust my children not to make foolish decisions that may kill them or get them addicted or pregnant? Statistically, it's pretty clear that's a BAD IDEA. Instead, I keep a leash on them. I know what sorts of parties they go to, and what sorts of friends they keep. I know what kind of boys my daughter goes out with and, more important, I impose curfews and other limitations intended to reduce the opportunities for getting carried away. I could go on... these are relatively old problems and the solutions are well-understood.
Cellphones and cars... that's a new one. And unlike crack or sex, it's something that's unlikely to progress slowly, with plenty of warning signs I can key in on. It only takes once.
So, I like this idea. I think it's a useful tool. Do all kids need it? Of course not. Good parents know their kids, know which ones will ignore them and which ones will listen, and act accordingly. In my case, one of these systems would be a waste of money for my son, but if they're on the market I WILL buy one for my daughter.
Why just teen drivers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hey naysayers (Score:5, Insightful)
By the same logic, we should ban driving entirely, because teens kill even without cell phones. As always, a proper cost-benefit analysis needs to be done.
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many times do we have to go through the tired "Group A is a higher risk for X, therefore Group A should be systematically banned from it" solution? If dangerous driving is the problem, address it with a solution that targets unsafe drivers, not the group that has a higher proportion of unsafe drivers. How many Slashdotters suddenly fall on the other side of this issue when we're talking about airport screening? Racial profiling and age profiling are equally dirty games to play.
Teens are also one of a few groups that everyone has been a member of at one point. You'd think with all of us former teens, still scarred from society's relentless abuse, would rally around the cause of eliminating teenage oppression. But we don't.
This is also a tired argument. The other side of your point here is that none of us ever have to worry about being teenagers ever again. The level of personal risk is a *much* more salient factor for most people, I suspect, and in this case, it's zero. How many of the extravagantly wealthy are looking back on their humble beginnings and championing the causes of the poor? Some notable examples, yes, but not as many as those of us who know it could be our names on the welfare applications next year.
Well, I suppose this story is too old and the thread too long for my comment to get much visibility, but maybe I've at least enriched one person's perspective?
Re:911, but not Mom? (Score:3, Insightful)
I totally agree with you.
When I started driving there was a new suburb being built near by, all the roads here laid out before the blocks of land where even sold. Me and my mates used to tear it up along the brand new road there was nothing to crazy or dangerous for us to try. Now several years on the skills I learned back then have since helped me avoid a major crash on more than one occasion.
What we did was illegal but it was the best driving lessons any of us could have. That said I don't advocate behaviour that puts others in danger but depending on where it is conducted there are time when it's best to turn a blind eye.
Re:An alternative suggestion (Score:1, Insightful)
As a teenager who respects my parents, and my parent's opinions, I think the problem is that you need to trust and respect your kids more. The biggest reason that I respect my parents is not
because I always agree with them, or because I'm afraid they will punish me, it's because I know they trust me, and my decisions. I may not always make the best decision given my lack of experience, but I know that no matter what, my parents will support me because they love me for me, not because I'm making the 'right' decisions.
I understand that giving teenagers freedom is difficult to do because you care so much about your kids, and want them to be happy, but in the long run, it is so much better to let them learn and grow by making mistakes. By taking away their choice you are only hindering their learning and experience to when they are older. It is better to stretch yourself and fail, then to never go beyond your comfort zone.
I have many friends, who are just as you say, stupid, irresponsible, materialistic, and impulsive, and I think their biggest problem is that they don't feel loved by their parents, because the parents don't take the time to listen to them, so when their parents impart 'advise' to them, they are not receptive and brush it off as they do any other lecture. The reason they put so much trust in their friends that they would 'jump off the cliff' so to speak, is because they love and respect them, and feel that from them in return. Because of this, they value their friend's opinion more than their parent's.
The best thing that parents can do, is in my opinion, just love their child. Parents really need to separate their child's actions from their child them self. Teenagers are going through one of the most difficult times of their life so far, and need love and support rather than rules, and regulations. They need someone to talk to and help them deal with issues in their life, and if they don't get if from their parents, they will look for it in other places(Insert Bad Places Here). People, Children, Teenagers, and Adults need love, with love problems can be solved, and lack of it creates problems.