Watch TV On Your Satnav 225
Barence writes "Satnav firm Mio is launching a device with an integrated TV tuner. The Mio Spirit range includes a digital television tuner that is intended to be used 'during breaks in the journey or at their final destination.' However, safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel. When the system is first turned on a warning message is displayed, telling the user not to watch television while driving. If this is ignored, a secondary warning message kicks in if the GPS chip detects the vehicle is moving at more than 5mph. But that's it!"
Re:First post? (Score:5, Interesting)
I always thought that warning messages were more likely to get you killed in the 0.05s you spend pressing "ok" when you could have done the one thing you wanted to do.
They'd be more effective to only let you use the TV in "radio mode", e.g. no video to distract you from the road.
Re:Because if only.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Japanese taxi drivers frequently have the TV playing on their nav units while driving, but they are among the safest drivers I've ever ridden with. I think two way communication is far more taxing to a driver's attention than a receive-only medium.
Re:Simple safety solution (Score:4, Interesting)
What about ferries? A hour long ferry ride would be the perfect use for a TV, but the satnav shuts itself down when the ferry leaves the port.
Re:That's fine.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Glad you got that off your chest?
Notice how I didn't say that the person has no responsibility for their actions? If by their actions they manage to injure/kill someone then they should bear the full force of the law.. there are plenty on the books for driving when distracted, it's called careless/wreckless driving and it's enforced in all 50 states.
All I'm saying is that restricting the capabilities of a device 'because it knows better than the human' is not the right decision, hence the Unix analogy. Consider this, maybe the front passenger is looking at the news/weather during an emergency.. a perfectly legitimate purpose and now the car must stop because the TV wont work over 5 MPH, allowing the tornado/zombies to harm the car.
Also, I'm not a libertarian.. just a believer in not having a nanny state that is reduced to the lowest UNcommon denominator and I do appreciate the tits on the LoTS, yum.
--iamnotayam
Re:That's fine.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I suspect that most of the ones who go on about "personal responsibility" and "force of law" are the same ones that would, if they were up before a court, whinge and whine and cry that it wasn't intentional and so they didn't do anything wrong. That and/or try to blame the carmaker for putting the device there in the first place.
Even "full force of law" means the culprit gets to sit in old sparky, that won't bring a dead person back, enable a cripple to walk again etc.
No, there will be at least one wreck.