Lawmakers Seek To Ban Google Glass On the Road 375
An anonymous reader writes in with news about a West Virginia bill that would prohibit drivers from "using a wearable computer with head mounted display." Republican Gary G. Howell sponsored the bill in reaction to reading an article on Google Glass and said: "I actually like the idea of the product and I believe it is the future, but last legislature we worked long and hard on a no-texting-and-driving law. It is mostly the young that are the tech-savvy that try new things. They are also our most vulnerable and underskilled drivers. We heard of many crashes caused by texting and driving, most involving our youngest drivers. I see the Google Glass as an extension."
HUD (Score:5, Insightful)
But some cars have a heads up display... which is basically a car-mounted version of the same thing. Can't we just have an administrative ruling that it falls under driving while distracted, or reckless driving, or whatever the legal term is, and not create a new law everytime someone makes something new?
Next up, no looking at your wristwatch while driving! It's the new technological menace!
Re:HUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HUD (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, Google's driverless car is almost ready...
Re:HUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars heads up displays don't include emails and google+ messages. Don't be obtuse.
Re:HUD (Score:5, Interesting)
But technically I could run a app that is beneficial to my driving. This week end rented a car and got one with a HUD. It displayed three things, the speed limit, the current speed and the navigation instructions. It "floated" over the hood and I could read the information without taking my eyes off the street. This is VERY beneficial when you are currently doing a maneuver in heavy traffic. It also made the audio queues obsolete. (It had none.) Oh and this implementation of a speed limit indicator works, you see your speed and the speed limit all the time. You really have to willfully be speeding, you can't speed "by mistake".
The only thing the Google glasses need are a driving mode.
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Which car is this?
Re:HUD (Score:4, Informative)
While I'm not the OP...
GM has had an on-again-off-again affair with these things in various levels of interesting. My 98 Bonneville had a basic mode as did a lot of Pontiacs of the era, Grand Prix, Bonneville, Firebird. Various Caddilacs, Corvettes, Camaros, Colorados, Acadias... the list goes on and on in GM. Some did just speed, turn signals and warnings. You could go up into getting radio stations and more information. A lot of the new ones do nav if you've got it.
Creative google searching will give you BMW and probably more if you can read the steering wheel emblems. Apparently you can get it add on now days too, but that's probably just for things you'd find in the radio... i.e. station info and Nav.
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Sounds like BMW's HUD system.
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newvehicles/3series/sedan/2011/showroom/safety/head_up_display.html? [bmw.com]
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Exactly BMW 330. And the speed limit detection was totally flawless, the first time I have seen it. Mot solution use a GPS + Map based system and thus don't know about local changes. This system must have some machine vision, because it flawlessly read the signs in the construction areas. The only errors it had when entering the Autobahn, that normally has no speed limit, but a temporary limit. But by the time you are up to speed, the next sign is visible and the system adapts.
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It was a BMW 330. As it was a rental car it had everything maxed out when it came to extras.
Re:HUD (Score:4, Funny)
Re:HUD (Score:4, Insightful)
But technically I could run a app that is beneficial to my driving. This week end rented a car and got one with a HUD. It displayed three things, the speed limit, the current speed and the navigation instructions. It "floated" over the hood and I could read the information without taking my eyes off the street. This is VERY beneficial when you are currently doing a maneuver in heavy traffic. It also made the audio queues obsolete. (It had none.) Oh and this implementation of a speed limit indicator works, you see your speed and the speed limit all the time. You really have to willfully be speeding, you can't speed "by mistake".
The only thing the Google glasses need are a driving mode.
You MIGHT download an app that might be beneficial to your driving.... presuming it makes up for the loss of attention span on what you're supposed to be focusing on.... DRIVING. It is an uncontestable fact that texting, calling on the phone, and browsing your emal on your smartphone, does lead to an increased risk in auto accidents. How would putting this stuff in your face make it any safer? We give our legislatures a deservedly bad rap when they think in terms of technology that's already generations obsolete. We should be giving this guy credit for looking ahead.
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Re:HUD (Score:4, Interesting)
HUDs on cars currently are also less intrusive and only take up 5-10% of your viewing area. Google Glass will probably cause people to focus on the road differently just like when you hold your phone to your head it causes you to lose mental focus.
Re:HUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Google Glass will probably cause people
Legislation should not be based on "probably" and "maybe" and other shit people are basically pulling out of their asses.
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I don't think he is being obtuse. The law is not going to specifically ban Google glasses, but any potential head mounted display. There can be no doubt based on years research and real world experience in the military that see-through head mounted displays can significantly improve situation awareness. A ban on head mounted displays not only prevents the use of ones that are bad for driving but any that could also be good for driving.
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+1 ... but as a HUD for my motorcycle, with my speed, a little direction arrow before turns, the last 30 seconds of video catching the twit running me off the road (or worse)... That I would like to see built into my helmet.
Last thing I want to do is interact with anyone wearing google glasses. In a normal social enviroment, they're like the uber-bluetooth headsets for the uber-douchbag
Re:HUD (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that specific-banning every incremental innovation is ugly lawmaking practice(it isn't wrong or unethical in any serious way; but a legal code full of a fuckton of pointless special cases that could have been generalized is no prettier than any other codebase so afflicted).
However, I'm not with you on the 'All HUDs are created equal" thing. In-car HUDs, while dubiously valuable, have the advantage of being built into cars, with 100% certainty that their users will be driving cars while using them. There is an established body of work on building car controls that are minimally distracting to drivers(sometimes it is even adhered to!). A car HUD is much more likely to adhere to that than is a generic HUD doing god-knows-what.
Now, nothing prevents a generic HUD from running a set of software displays that would actually be useful to a driver(so banning them in general seems pointless and possibly counterproductive); but it is fair to treat a device that evolved out of the hardware, and use cases, of a smartphone as being distracting until proven innocent...
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Or we could, you know, worry about actual behavior and actual problems instead of perceived imagined nonsense crap like this. I put texting and driving bans in the same category. Unless you also ban other things which are demonstrably as distracting as texting and driving, you're just a reactionary anti technology twerp who doesn't like something because it's popular with people you don't care for.
Nobody was worried about cell phones when they were so expensive as to only be business tools for certain wel
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Nobody was worried about cell phones when they were so expensive as to only be business tools for certain well paid professions. It's only when young and less well off people adopted them that the Chicken Little screaming began.
Yea, obviously it's because the young and "poor people" use them now, and has nothing to do with the effects of mass adoption.... kriminy...
Meanwhile, we don't ban putting on makeup, shaving, reading printed material, and, worst of all, undisciplined children from cars. The latter, btw, being the direct cause of an accident which caused damage to my car while I was sitting still once. I didn't decide to make it my life's mission to do something about distractions caused by kids in cars, as some of these anti tech crusaders with too much time and too small brains seem to.
Driving like an idiot while looking at a paper map? That's ok. Do the same thing using a piece of tech to find your way? You need to be arrested or fined because you're a hazard. Please note the hazard is the same either way, it's just what some fools feel about the cause that's different. Yes, I meant "feel" and not "think" because clearly there's no thinking going on.
Uh, those things are illegal, you know. It's called either Careless and Imprudent or Reckless Driving, depending on where you live. Thing is, all forms of distracted driving are covered by one or both of the aforementioned laws - including distractions based on technology.
BTW, not a young person with an axe to grind.
Yes, your insistence that young people using cell phones is why we have laws that pertain to them,
Re:HUD (Score:4, Interesting)
And if I want to use the GPS feature only while driving? I think the best solution would be for Google to add a "lockout" feature, where GPS is the only feature accessible when the speed of the glasses is in excess of some reasonable number. Users could enable or disable this mode, as I can with my normal GPS unit, for the cases where the device is being used by the passenger instead of the driver. Then it falls under a blanket "distracted driving" laws when used inappropriately but is still allowable when used appropriately.
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What about passengers? Why would you want to disable their Glass?
The second sentence in my original post reads "Users could enable or disable this mode, as I can with my normal GPS unit, for the cases where the device is being used by the passenger instead of the driver."
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Yeah, because all those people on the road are using their smartphones "for GPS" while driving now. It's no different than Bit Torrent. While there are valid uses for the technology, most people are using it for willful copyright infringement.
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I think the best solution would be for Google to add a "lockout" feature,
Why? If the glasses are recording everything that happens on the road then it will be much easier to start taking people's licenses away.
Most people would drive a lot better if they thought they were being recorded.
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GPS uses less paper, and is easier to manage when I'm making multiple stops in multiple cities for work trips, sometimes through cities and provinces I've never been to before. Maps and/or printable directions are far less practical. Bottom line: why should anybody be forced to use the solutions either you or I prefer? Any solution is valid if it can be applied safely.
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1. Traffic monitoring built in to my chosen GPS enables changes to route after setting off.
2. Even without automatic traffic updates, I can see problems ahead, turn off the current route and let the GPS pick up the pieces.
3. If I've got a long route memorised (in a hypothetical world without GPS), but somehow forget a turning I will have to backtrack or find signs to the next "waypoint" in my mind. If I'm in another country, or well outside my usual area of travel, that's a non-trivial task.
4. "Safety" came
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Sure, I can look up directions before I start driving. However, then, if the directions are more than moderately complex, I need to write them down or print them out... which means having one or more pieces of paper that I will need to consult while driving. That leaves me a choice of either finding somewhere to pull over every time I need to glance at the directions to see what I need to look for next, or pick up and look at a piece of paper while operating a moving vehicle.
With a GPS, on the other han
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In the absense of laws stating precisely what is not legal, your wristwatch example would be reality. If you just have some generic 'no driving while distracted' law, who makes the determination of what is a distraction? The individual cop.
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Yes, states have distracted driving laws. And the only time they are used is AFTER an incident has occurred. If you are swerving, you are already breaking a law (failure to maintain lane). However, if you are swerving, the only thing that prevented you from having an accident was luck - there was no-one else there at the same time.
The purpose of these types of laws is to prevent behavior that is likely to lead to a problem BEFORE you are to the point of swerving or having an accident.
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If you are swerving around the road and the cop notices, it's pretty easy to see that you are driving distracted/recklessly.
A good way to prevent this would be to get drivers to wear head-mounted video recording devices.
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We have a law like that in the UK (driving without due care and attention) but it only sort-of works. There are lots of grey areas that can only be worked out with a slow and expensive court procedure. There is outright abuse as well, like a woman arrested for taking a sip of water while waiting in the traffic lights.
The official advice is "keep your hands on the wheel at all times". Except, presumably, when changing gear or scratching a distracting itch.
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Yeah....but those HUDs are certified by the same lawmakers. And they are implemented by car makers that risk the entire car being delayed because of "too much info" in the HUD.
As for after-market HUDs, they also should be certified, as laws don't allow anything uncertified between head and windshiled. But these uncertified devices are easier to control (like fines for using them uncertified) because once installed, they are not easily removed (like Google Glasses).
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I prefer oddly specific laws, this way safer alternatives like road head, always remain legal.
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Why cant Google design a QWERTY steering wheel and sod it all...what's with all this mincey pixie baby steps to the Darwinian utopia we had planned for the future?
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You are correct, of course... but unfortunately that would require that people actually use the grey matter between their ears to determine whether something might be considered distracting or not, which no small percentage of drivers do not have any real motivation to try to use. "Distracted" driving, by itself, is far too subjective a concept to apply objectively. A driver who is simply daydreaming, for example, can easily be just as big of a danger to others as somebody who is driving intoxicated.
S
Re:HUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Fighter pilots aren't 16. They are college-educated military officers who have had several years of driving behind them to get used to operating a large death machine, followed by extensive classroom training and instructor-led seat time before they are allowed to operate the jet solo. Additionally, they have simulators with which to get used to monitoring all necessary instrumentation as well as keeping an eye out for enemy planes.
High school kids cannot be compared to fighter pilots in any meaningful way with regards to the ability to safely operate a large machine with multiple points of distraction, on public roads, surrounded by other drives of various skills and levels of distraction.
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So you're saying that displaying speed in a HUD on the windscreen would distract kids? The same kids that have been playing computer games with HUDs for the last 14 years? Moving a little bit of information up to the windscreen isn't the problem, it's just getting information that isn't relevant to your driving that is the problem.
HUDs could be very useful for things like night vision projections. Some cars already have this.
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I was replying to someone talking about fighter pilot training/HUDs. HUDs aren't illegal surely? Some BMWs and Mercedes have them here in Europe.
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Having a HUD doesn't magically make you an idiot. I'm pretty sure that's all on you.
Some car manufacturers have already taken design cues from video game style HUDs in the last few years, and it's no surprise that things will be heading more that way.
A HUD just gives you an efficient way to view information. It's safer than having to look down at your dashboard to view your speed or some other piece of information, because you will still be able to see what's going on on the road.
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I'm not 16 either, and have more experience driving than most fighter pilots do flying.
While your point is well made, it doesn't really apply to this discussion: The law being proposed would affect everyone (except, basically, cops). So your fighter pilot (or a professional driver) would be pulled over and ticketed just like they were a 16 year old with a learner's permit. The only reason age comes up is because the guy seems to think only (very) young people like to try new tech, and so... I dunno withe
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I'm not 16 either, and have more experience driving than most fighter pilots do flying.
Probably in the same way that most freight liner pilots have more air miles than most fighter pilots. Experience and miles logged are not the same thing; it is the number of incidents and situations that promote learning.
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Fighter pilots are carefully selected, highly trained, and extremely focused.
Drivers are every idiot with 20/30 vision and 16 birthdays.
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Plus it's quite hard to run into other things up in the sky.
A slip that could cause a multiple pileup on a road would mostly just need a course correction in an aircraft.
Re:HUD (Score:4, Informative)
At 10,000 feet you get a minute or so to solve any problems.
In a car you only get about a second.
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After reading your description of Joe Quarterpounder's troubles, I'm wondering why it is that we look down on Joe.
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fighter pilots follow the rules
Kids get into more collisions because they are dumb and break the traffic laws. almost every time i see someone run a stop sign, a red light, drive too fast for conditions its someone who looks like they are in their 20s in their hurry to no where
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Takes a special kind of dumb to manage this [bbc.co.uk]!
Re:HUD (Score:4, Funny)
but fighter pilot HUD's don;t have what you best friend is eating or funny pictures of kittens.
But when the Chinese manufacturers turn on the "remote enable" they will
Couldn't a HUD actually help you drive safer? (Score:5, Insightful)
It could display driving speed, detect emergencies and notify you of them, pop up weather warnings. Overall I see a device with a HUD giving you an advantage driving..
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There go my plans for a LiDAR, RADAR overlay HUD to provide better visibility in snow, fog, low-light, etc. Baby, bathwater both defenestrated.
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That's the beauty of a HUD, you don't actually look at it but through it. If you are focusing on the HUD, you are doing it wrong.
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That's a long solved problem [for HUD's], just make the display focus at infinity - that way you don't have to refocus. (Seriously folks, stop and think a minute... while Google Glass is new, HUD's aren't. These are old, long solved problems.)
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If a message comes up saying "Slow down, ice ahead", the reality is that you will take your eyes off the road to read the message, even though your eyes will still be pointing in the same direction.
If only there were ways to indicate to drivers in a non-distracting way of conditions regarding their vehicle and surroundings. One might imagine a simple yellow light that blinks 3-4 times, or a pinging tone.
Why, what havoc would occur if cars broadcast the diagnostic information to the driver to inform them of potential engine trouble, high temperatures, icy conditions, low oil, and other conditions. Drivers simply cannot process that much information and keep from turning into flaming balls of destruction.
So you turn 'Driving mode on' with your HUD, and it flashes a small dot of light in a non obstructive manner if there is an accident ahead. My smartphone already does this through Waze, and I expect most standalone GPS units will soon as well as they connect into the in-car wifi.
There are countless ways that current technology can be distracting.
An easy way to reduce accidents from an already distracting technology? Ban speed cameras. Nothing like watching drivers overcompensate, or swivel their heads around as they are trying to look for the cameras.
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You're confusing depth perception with focus, and no, we don't actually focus all that quickly, and no, the message could be projected in your field of vision as if it were floating well ahead of you, so there would be no focus change. Even if you had to refocus your eyes, you'd still be seeing the road no differently than if you were looking at a bug on your windshield.
In your common sense anti-Glass rationalizing,
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This is rather like saying that a mobile phone is an advantage when driving. After all, someone could text you a warning about traffic conditions ahead, or talk you through how to get somewhere, or you could use the camera in the phone to take photos of cars that are being driven dangerously. Yep, mobile phones are the next big advance in driver safety!
Let's face it: If someone is wearing Google Glass while driving, there's a 99% chance they're using it to watch football, film or porn.
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Actually you can glance at the message immediately without shifting your vision off the road through a transparent HUD. You'll lose focus and attention, but you retain motion and reflex, which make up greater than 90% of driving anyway: your focus is on a specific area in a specific direction, and your attention is usually mainly ahead; objects shifting out of their stable relative position quickly draw attention. Glancing at your cell phone moves your vision to a relatively large, opaque obstruction tha
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And if GPS speed > 20kph disable non driving related functions.
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Sucks for passengers/carpoolers/sluglines/metro/bus riders.
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Sucks for passengers/carpoolers/sluglines/metro/bus riders.
So? Those don't exist in the USA.~
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Absolutely will happen yes... But is the law such a good idea. Like all technologies there are good and bad ways it could be used. Now if we were to make the law just say "you cannot text, browse the internet etc... while driving" and rule that glasses are not an exception, that would cover things as far as the law should go. Are people going to do it anyway? of course, but that isn't a fair question A fair question is, how many more people are going to do it anyway that aren't now, because there are certai
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Actually reading and displaying the speed limit and your current speed works great. If you are diving in Germany for example, where there is no basic speed limit on the Autobahn but often they will limit your speed to 120 km/h for specific sections or traffic conditions (LED displays that change dynamically). So you are cruising at 200 km/h (aka low altitude flying) and you miss the 120 km/h sign, you instantly loose your drivers license. If you have a system, like I did with the car I rented this week end,
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HUD (Score:2)
It seems a bit to reactionary to something that could actually be a bonus. No, people shouldn't be driving while reading email, etc, but I'd much prefer a HUD stype presentation of speed, RPM, direction, vehicle status than looking at the dash. Some cars used to have HUD displays and it worked reasonable well. Likewise, it would be nice to have a record of what happened in the case of an accident, seeing amn accident, or a drunk driver, etc. This seems to be trying to ban the device in general, not how it's
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This seems to be trying to ban the device in general, not how it's used.
If you can come up with another way to address their concerns, then perhaps they'll listen. This is a real concern, and I think a valid one. When it comes to something like a copy protection circumvention device then banning the device and not the use is one thing, and when it comes to distraction while driving then something else entirely is happening. The first is unreasonable, you're only taking your own life into your hands. The second is not, because now you've got a chance for your inattention to kill
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Just mandate an in-car device that detects a google glass headset and redirects all of the display to the car's HUD/device screen instead. Thus your vision is not obscured by the output, but the possible utility of the device is not compromised either.
Where I am its illegal to operate a cell-phone while driving, unless you have a car mounted hands-free cellphone etc. This would be little different
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Just mandate an in-car device that detects a google glass headset and redirects all of the display to the car's HUD/device screen instead. Thus your vision is not obscured by the output, but the possible utility of the device is not compromised either.
That would maybe work if the device were included in new cars, and were illegal to disable... But you have to account for people switching cars, and the thing can't just plug into a lighter socket.
That's why we need driverless cars! (Score:2)
Oh yeah, I'm sure it would be used as an aid... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was paranoid... (Score:2)
...I'd say the lawmaker was worried about the possibility of the Google Glass user recording what transpires at a traffic stop.
Good thing I'm not paranoid.
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...I'd say the lawmaker was worried about the possibility of the Google Glass user recording what transpires at a traffic stop.
Good thing I'm not paranoid.
Given that dash cams are 100% legal and start at under $100(typically slightly over if you want GPS included), I'd say that your paranoia needs to use Occam's razor a bit more frequently...
A device with a cell connection is somewhat more likely to get footage offsite even if you end up assaulting the officer's fist with your face, repeatedly; but you could plaster a car with dash-cams(including the flavor that has the camera module connected by a video cable to a recording box embedded deeper in the vehicle
Need for Emphasis on Public Transport (Score:4, Insightful)
The Google Glass is likely just the start of the more intimate computing interface industry. So either the industry flops and so no problem, or the industry takes off.
In the latter case, safety would dictate that either cars be made more autonomous (less dependent on driver control) or that public transport be changed to accomodate. Not sure what you could do for the latter but right now the big disincentive to public transport is lack of reliability, privacy, and cleanliness. Improvements would likely turn the tide. As for funding, if say, half the cost of annual private vehicle ownership were instead put completely in to the public transport infrastructure, wouldn't that be sufficient to fuel and sustain the required changes?
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Enforce the distracted driving laws, done. Covers all current and future technology.
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Alternatively, laws like these may force Google to put safeguards into the product which detect when you are driving and prevent you fr
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If they're not weaving or following too closely, are they distracted by the glasses?
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Where did I say no one would ever get distracted by the glasses?
Stopping the problem != making a law specifically outlawing it, as can be seen by your own speeding example. Have an advertising campaign (ever see the "Speed Kills" one?), pull over people weaving and tailgating and speeding, regardless of why.
All laws should be based on data.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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http://lmgtfy.com/?q=distracted+driving+statistics [lmgtfy.com]
This is stupid (Score:2)
If anything, Glass could make texting less dangerous. Texting is currently highly dangerous because you have to completely look away from driving and focus on the phone. And you can't and never will stop such cell phone use from happening and creating accidents because it's way too difficult for law enforcement to see and prove. (Hint: it's not just texting, it's also things like phone GPS.) So we're going to legislate away something that could make it less dangerous? Brilliant.
If simple distractions really
If only... (Score:2)
If only there were laws about "dangerous driving" or "reckless driving" or (here in the UK) "Driving without due care and attention" so that the cops could book anybody who clearly wasn't in control of their vehicle, whether they were eating spaghetti, doing their makeup, performing a lewd act with their passenger, coding in FORTH using a Microwriter chord keyboard* or using their quantum degrebulator. Then there would be no need to come up with a new, specific, law for every new gadget that was invented.
I
We don't really new new laws, do we? (Score:2)
And sec1923, "Reading while operating a motor vehicle prohibited"
An operator may not read printed material including but not limit
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How would you enforce this law when the glasses could look like simple sunglasses? We've ventured into the realm of unnecessary laws.
How could you possibly ban drunk driving? You can't even smell alcohol through the windshield!
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In my experience as a driver, going a little slower, leaving a little more room between vehicles and using turn signals properly all contribute far more to my safety than I would gain from beter motor skills and a faster response time. Your extra tenth of a second in response time is worthless if you've already crashed into the car in front because you were too close.
My experience came the hard way but, a
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You're an n off 1. The facts are quite obvious, young drivers make up a disproportionate number of casualties in auto-accidents. Sure the elderly may also be a high risk group. In-between, however, there's a group who have more experience and fewer accidents.
I didn't comment on Google Glass, I responded to a post above which was questioning whether or not young drivers are actually worse, despite their faster reaction times. I'm pretty sure any actuary will confirm that yes, as a group, young drivers are mo
Re:Young most vulnerable and underskilled drivers (Score:5, Informative)
Young people in good health, with good motor skills and high response time are the worst drivers, right?
The precise shape of the curve isn't 100% clear; but new drivers are shitty drivers. It takes time to accumulate the experience that weak hominids need to respond automatically to common situations that are at or beyond the edge of being slow enough to respond to by conscious thought.(inconveniently, since the problem is inexperience rather than merely youth raising the starting driver's age helps less than people would like.
Once they get some experience, young drivers are better than older drivers; because their vision, reflexes, and motor skills are superior, and the amount of additional improvement possible from additional experience tapers off.
From there, it's all downhill; but old people vote at substantial rates compared to the population at large, so they are less likely to be taken off the road.
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yep
all the stupid kids i see speeding, running stop signs, texting, yapping on cell phones while driving because they think they are the best driver on the road
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It goes both ways.
On one hand, the young always think "they know better" and thus think their reflexes and novice-skills are on-par with the team from "Too Fast / Too Furious" so they act carelessly. Add to that, they're pretty easily distracted... texting, talking on the phone, looking at the girl (or pal) in the next seat while talking, etc. I've had a LOT of near-misses due to some idiot kid. One gave me the finger and yelled at me because he ran a stop sign. Trying to tell them that they're doing so
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Military pilots -- flying multi-million dollar machines loaded with all kinds of nasty stuff -- don't have a problem with heads-up displays and helmet-mounted sights. These are considered to be useful tools. Why doesn't glass fall into the same category? Maybe a driving app coupled to a sensor suite on a car?
I suspect that the delta between passing a driver's test and being declared flight-ready for 30 million taxpayer dollars with added explosives has something to do with it...
The fact that military HUDs don't tend to have twitter clients or porn playback support might also be a difference.