US Regulators Seek To Reduce Road Deaths With Smartphone 'Driving Mode' (theguardian.com) 291
US regulators are seeking to reduce smartphone-related vehicle deaths with a new driving-safe mode that would block or modify apps to prevent them being a distraction while on the road. From a report on The Guardian:The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are to issue voluntary guidelines for smartphone makers, which will seek to restrict the apps and services accessible on a smartphone being used by a driver. US transport secretary Anthony Foxx said: "Your smartphone becomes so many different things that it's not just a communication device. Distraction is still a problem. Too many people are dying and being injured on our roadways." The NHTSA is hoping that Apple, Samsung and other popular smartphone manufacturers will adopt the guidelines in future smartphone and software releases. The so-called driving mode will block distractions such as social media, messages or email, stop the use of the keyboard for communication activities and also restrict access to websites, video and distracting graphics. The intention is that the driving mode will be adopted in a similar manner to the airplane mode common to most smartphones and connected devices, which restricts radio communications while airborne. Airplane mode has been a feature of smartphones since 2007.
stupid and too late (Score:4, Insightful)
better put money in making autonomous vehicles more affordable...
Re:stupid and too late (Score:5, Funny)
better put money in making autonomous vehicles more affordable...
Well fuck it, let's just stop educating humans altogether. Clearly we should just give up on the human race and let the machines think for us now.
Somehow I feel I should use the word "Millennial" in here too, just for the hell of it.
All for education, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Education is wonderful, but we can't fix stupid. Yet.
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Though with any luck within 20 years we'll make stupid a fuel source.
Re:All for education, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
This all misses the bigger level of stupidity of a whole NHTSA mandated "new driving-safe mode". How does a smart phone know what seat you are sitting in? If you want to hear a big outcry put the restrictions in place and wait for the passengers in cars, buses, and trains start to whine.with a new driving-safe mode.
Just dumb, dumb, dumb...
Re:All for education, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can say that again. I was an insurance agent trainee 2 years ago, and often carpooled w/ my boss. She had reckless driving habits - watching videos on the phone, doing snapchat, and another trainee would happily play Candy Crush Saga when she was at the wheel. I would offer to drive so that they could happily play, sometimes they accepted, sometimes they declined. My boss' response was: "So far, I've never had any accidents"
Re:All for education, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Without question, the examples you gave are irresponsible. However, the "DriveMode" function on my phone pissed me off bad enough in one swipe for me to kill it.
Leaving home for someplace I've never been - Mapped it before leaving and checked the recommended route. Got someplace unfamiliar and went to check the map - I was greeted by a "stop light" hand and the caption, "It can wait." I then (while in traffic) had to figure out how to clear the damn DriveMode and set it to leave me the hell alone. This single experience soured me on DriveMode, at least as it's implemented on my phone (AT&T LG Vista).
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Bravo, humanity.
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Clearly we should just give up on the human race and let the machines think for us now.
Where have you been, I gave up on the human race years ago, I for one welcome our new autonomous overlords.
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That's basically how Android Auto (and I'm assuming Apple Carplay) work. When it is plugged into the dashboard display, you get driving friendly apps, and the rest of the phone is disabled while in that mode.
Block everyone or the driver? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Exactly - if it's "enforced" then anyone in a moving vehicle - car, train, bus - will be blocked.
Re:Block everyone or the driver? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why car navigation systems impede... (Score:2)
There is a good reason for that: it's a safety feature. I have a Subaru Crosstrek w/ Starlink. If the car is in gear and I enter the address or place search mode, I can't type anything until the car is stationary. So I'd either have to pull over, or come to a stop until I can enter an address. The way your girlfriend could get around it is pull over, enter/change the address, let it navigate, and then merge again. Yeah, yeah, I know if you are in the passenger seat, you could do all that while she is d
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Unless those people are smart enough to figure out how to swipe their finger down from the top to pull up the service menu and click off the GPS. But that's probably too involved for everyone but those hacker people...
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Actually if you RTFA, it mentions they want to exempt nav apps from the blocking so that wouldn't be a problem. Of course your passenger couldn't use other apps at the same time. Unless the passenger took the driver's phone and did navigation with that and whatever else they want with their own phone.
This is a stupid way to try and fix the problem as getting around it is trivial.
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what about the passengers ?
Passengers would survive (Score:2, Interesting)
what about the passengers ?
What about them? Believe it or not operating your phone in a moving vehicle wasn't an option for close to 100 years. It's only in the last 30 that it has become a thing. I assure you that the passengers would survive without their smartphone fix for the duration of the drive. I spent most of my early driving years without any sort of mobile phone and not coincidentally 100% of us were not killed by people playing with their phones.
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I spent most of my early driving years without any sort of mobile phone and not coincidentally 100% of us were not killed by people playing with their phones.
People playing with their radios, their heaters, their makeup and their dicks were a different story.
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Passengers especually. Those fucks distract like hell.
Ban them!
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You accidentally used the broad tip brush there. Oops.
I know, from personal experience, that boredom isn't the cause. It's the fact that these devices have become a crutch.
Do you even know anybody's phone number anymore? I mean, actually memorized? How about street addresses or even directions to places? How often are you talking to someone while driving? Even "hand's free" talking is still distracted driving. How often do you need to seek through several layers of menus to find the thing you want to listen
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I don't remember people's phone numbers, but that ain't the point. Point is that when I am driving, I listen to the radio - either the news, or music. If I need to call anybody, I do it before the trip, or after. If I'm driving somewhere that I can't find the directions, I'd stop, call the person and it will happen over the car system, and then I'd keep driving while talking.
I think the GP was talking about people who play w/ their phones while driving. I described above 2 people I've seen who did tha
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I think the GP was talking about people who play w/ their phones while driving. I described above 2 people I've seen who did that - one would do snapchat, and the other would play candy crush. This when there were usually 3 or 4 people in the car, and we could, and were chatting as well. I see no reason to do that if one is a driver. If one is alone, like I usually am (the above was 2 years ago), then just listen to the radio or your own music collection. If one is w/ others, chat w/ them. Nothing really justifies the driver playing w/ her iPhone: driving requires ones complete attention to begin w/.
Do you have an aversion to the word with or something?
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I would ignore calls before I had bluetooth integration (hands and eyes free). My new car has a steering wheel button to answer the phone, I don't even have to glance at it. I also think I'm one of the few people who has the self control to completely ignore text messages while I'm driving. I think the phone is a great addition to my commute - IHeartRadio, or Pandora; much better than the morning talk shows that are 40% commercials. Waze is a million times better than getting a brief traffic report ever
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Do you even know anybody's phone number anymore? I mean, actually memorized? How about street addresses or even directions to places? How often are you talking to someone while driving? Even "hand's free" talking is still distracted driving. How often do you need to seek through several layers of menus to find the thing you want to listen to? How about notifications from the device? Do you need to know the response to that important query you threw out there before you got in the car?
I remember some people's phone numbers, but not everyone's. But that's beside the point, because I don't call people while driving.
If it is so important that it can't wait, then it's so important that you can stop to make a call. And if it is not important enough to stop over, it's not important enough to risk a crash over either. Don't call.
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I often wish I went into psychology because of things like that. I know you are right, I know it's true - it just doesn't happen to me, and I find it fascinating and want to understand what people's damage is. It actually started over 20 years ago, before everyone had cellphones... my idiot roommate would get home from work and immediately pick up the phone and start calling people and having absolutely pointless conversations with people he'd be seeing within a few days anyway, if not not later that day.
Re: Block everyone or the driver? (Score:4, Informative)
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And someone who is driving would never choose the option that says you are a passenger. /s
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Re: Block everyone or the driver? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. I mean anyone who plays Pokémon Go (kid does) knows as soon as you speed up in a car the app asks you if you are the passenger and you have to click ok to continue.
Thus creating an additional distraction for the driver, who now needs to look at his phone to find and tap the "I'm a passenger" button.
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Not really. I mean anyone who plays Pokémon Go (kid does) knows as soon as you speed up in a car the app asks you if you are the passenger and you have to click ok to continue.
bulletproof
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I don't know if they've fixed that, but I do know my wife and I have stopped hopping in the car on the weekends to drive to more densely populated areas where we could walk around and catch Po
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Think of it as Evolution in Action. Those who use their apps while driving, will tend to remove themselves from the gene pool. . .
Me ? I use two apps: the Google Maps/GPS for driving, and the voice app for controlling it. ..
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I'm sure that will comfort you when one of them hits you as you are walking across the street with the light and get hit by someone who is paying more attention to their phone than their driving. I've almost been hit a couple of times because the driver has been looking at their phones instead of seeing the stop sign.
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When you are a pedestrian and you see a car approach, don't you look through the windshield to get the mood of the driver? I do, and if I see that he's in a hurry, I wait for him to pass. Very often, when they make eye contact, they give you the right of way. If I saw the driver even talking on his phone, let alone playing, I wait for him to pass and be out of my way before I continue.
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When you are a pedestrian and you see a car approach, don't you look through the windshield to get the mood of the driver? I do, and if I see that he's in a hurry, I wait for him to pass. Very often, when they make eye contact, they give you the right of way. If I saw the driver even talking on his phone, let alone playing, I wait for him to pass and be out of my way before I continue.
If you can see the mood of the driver and think its still ok to cross infront of him you either have super zoom o vision or are very quick to get across. I'd say if you can see the drivers face clearly enough to gauge mood you want to be waiting.
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Conservation of dumb asses (Score:2)
Think of it as Evolution in Action. Those who use their apps while driving, will tend to remove themselves from the gene pool. . .
Except that they tend to remove other people from the gene pool who weren't dumb enough to play with their phone at the same time. So the gene pool is not improved because it has the same net number of dumb asses as before the accident.
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Its even more difficult when you are ignoring that its actually an old problem that you never made much progress on.
Cell phones are entirely new in the past generation, but, there has been no uptick, overall, in distracted driving deaths, certainly not like you would expect if they were an actual cause and not simply a new preferred choice for distraction.
Distracted driving was always a problem. The only solution is to remove humans from the driving equation entirely. This will only change the symptom, more
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Someone who wasn't distracted by their own fatuous logic would expected the road fatality rate to decrease on a VMT basis due to ongoing improvements in vehicle safety, road design, trauma surgery, and ongoing public education efforts.
I'd parse List of motor vehicle dea [wikipedia.org]
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You need to think of this as a UI guideline, not a gun pointed at someone's face. A quasi-standard, not a regulation (even though it might be coming from regulators).
If done correctly, a user will select the best mode, not to save their life, but to maximize their own convenience. People do want to interact with their device when they're driving, and this isn't even a mistake. The problem is that the best UI when you're not driving, is a horrible UI when you are driving, and probably vice-versa.
Depending on
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The driver mode settings on one of the platforms - forgetting which - enables one to mention if one is the driver or passenger.
Last year, I rear ended someone while driving for Lyft, as I was busy looking at my phone to see where exactly the passenger who had just summoned me was located. I was actually headed to a fork in the freeway, but there was traffic backed up at the exit, and the car in front of me had come to a sudden halt. By the time I noticed that, it was too late.
But otherwise, when I get
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I've had to make three trips across state in the last week, about 3 hours each way, on local roads and state highway routes. I interacted with my phone a lot along the way, from the map to the music to a couple phone calls and incoming texts.
I also interacted with the radio, AC/heater controls, bottle of Coke/Mt Dew, and snacks. I can even say I interacted with other cars as we had to navigate around accidents on at least three occasions.
My viewpoint is that if you can't operate you vehicle safely while mak
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This. So very much this. Mind you I'm a huge proponent of hands-free, but the overwhelming point is that if you are unable to drive safely without both hands on the wheel, you are unable to drive safely at all. Cars and other motorized vehicles do have more control inputs than just the steering, accelerator and brakes.
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According to the summary, this should work like airplane mode.
So, how does your phone detect that you're in an airplane? Right. It doesn't. It relies on the user putting the phone into a mode that can be operated safely in a plane.
So, the driver and only the driver would set his phone to car mode. In other words: This is about having all manufacturers something like "Android Auto".
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This has a major flaw (Score:2)
This depends on the phone operator putting the phone into driver mode. I think the people least likely to do that are the most intense phone users.
This sounds great in principle, but is it really going to do any good?
Disable maps (Score:5, Insightful)
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What we need is a way to tell the smartphone 'if navigation app X is running, don't bug me with anything else'. No reminders (can't do anything about them until I have arrived at my destination anyway), no messages (especially not plastered over the middle of the navigation info while trying to negotiate a complex junction), and (looking at you Apple) no bloody system updates!
Please block portrait mode video (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be happy with a feature that forces cellphones to shoot video in landscape orientation.
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I don't mind portrait mode, as much as I hate that they always show the full-height video with a wider zoom of it filling the rest of the screen. Just show the video with a black background so I can watch it without the distraction of movement all around it.
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Possible alternative? (Score:2)
(obviously, there would be overrides for one handed people)
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More than this. (Score:2)
One ass I work with has a 90 minute commute to work.
He was apparently gloating to people at lunch that he watches videos on an iPad which he keeps on the steering wheel during the drive.
He's already totaled one car (luckily no one else was involved).
Frankly, I don't think too many people would be upset if he drove himself into a tree (he's not a particularly likeable person). My problem is if he hits another car on the road.
Real world disconnect... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just guessing.... that maaaaybe these legislators don't ride the bus often?
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I'm just guessing.... that maaaaybe these legislators don't ride the bus often?
Not legislators, bureaucrats (NHTSA). That is the problem. These "regulators" are always looking for new ways to justify their jobs. If they don't come out with new and improved ideas for us little people regardless of the practicality, usefulness, or hardship on those little people, Congress may not think they need as big a budget next year. It's a good thing they always know what's best for us. Mommy can't be around forever, you know.
I'm way ahead of them (Score:2)
And even here they don't know how it works (Score:2)
" The intention is that the driving mode will be adopted in a similar manner to the airplane mode common to most smartphones and connected devices, which restricts radio communications while airborne."
Um, no, Airplane Mode restricts radio communication when it is enabled. By a user.
And my phone can't tell if it's airborne or not unless it lost all personalization and app settings again, thank you HTC and Google..
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I think people are inferring too much heavy-handedness.
Look at it this way: Airplane mode successfully restricts radio use while airborne, because it is enabled by the user.
(See what I did there?) Correct operation is defined as the computer doing whatever the user wants it to do. The user is in charge of balancing convenience with desire-to-not-be-a-dick, so he'll select what is most appropriate for his needs.
Airplane mode works! It's great. It's one of the best, most successful, easily-understood interfac
This is not solved with software. (Score:5, Interesting)
The solution here is rather simple. It's called real fucking punishment for the people hurting or killing other humans on the road in incidents where distracted driving was clearly the cause.
Insurance companies should not cover any costs. The individual should have to. Suspended license for 12 months. On top of that, no US cellular carrier is legally allowed to issue offenders a phone in their name for a period of 6 months.
Driving while operating cellular devices is already against the law. Enforcement is only effective with actual deterrents. If we had real punishment, we wouldn't have to be going to such extremes as motion-sensitive apps, or trying to figure out how to block the driver and let the precious snowflakes in the other seats continue to feed their cellular addictions.
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It's called real fucking punishment for the people hurting or killing other humans on the road in incidents where distracted driving was clearly the cause.
I think the crime you're looking for is called manslaughter. It's similar to a murder charge but implies carelessness more than intent.
Punishments will not solve the problem (Score:3)
The solution here is rather simple. It's called real fucking punishment for the people hurting or killing other humans on the road in incidents where distracted driving was clearly the cause.
If you want to see how effective this is you merely need to look at drunk driving laws. It would have some effect but it wouldn't eliminate the problem. It also doesn't bring back to life the people that were killed by those who chose to behave irresponsibly.
The only solution that would actually work would be to basically restrict ALL phones in a car that is determined to be driving on a road automatically with no user option to override. This is technologically feasible. Yes this is an (overly?) harsh
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By the time you hurt or kill someone, it's too late. No punishment or fine will bring someone back from the dead.
Good idea..but (Score:2)
..how will they (compulsorily) limit this to the DRIVER? Anything short of that is nothing more than window-dressing to make legislators feel they're "doing something".
As they say: "Such driving modes are already implemented within certain Android smartphones, including Samsung models, but they are not compulsory and are up to the users to activate."
If they're already in place, are they making ANY difference? I'd guess not: people who are conscientious enough to voluntarily use the feature, are probably a
Android auto (Score:2)
If they realy want to do something useful it's suggest the auto makers interrogate with phones as in get the hell out of the way. That means let them take over the touch screen and access the steering wheel controls etc. Give them access to the built in GPS etc. Then get out of the way, it might ruin 3k nav packages that suck and need $200 updates yearly.
Bonus points for putting in HUD's again and letting the phones access those.
Making cars safer can not be about restriction, it's not blocking IM's/email
there are many other distractions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Before smartphones there were handheld cell phones, radios to be fiddled with, newspapers to be read, makeup to be applied, food to be eaten, and children in the back seat to be yelled at...all activities being done by people who have come very close to kitting me at one time or another....lets make and enforce law against distracted driving without singling out particular distractions.
Relative hazards phone or breakdown lane? (Score:2)
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This is how it works (Score:2)
Once a thing becomes enough of a problem where it's obvious it isn't going to fix itself, rules / laws and regulations show up to fix it for us.
Personally, I'm all for it. Been asking for it for years.
I see WAY too many people fiddling with their phone while driving. If I were to make an estimate, I would say one in four of everyone I'm driving around are on their phone.
Since people are too damned stupid to realize their behavior puts everyone ELSE at risk, then we have to rely on other methods to deal wit
Simpliest and best solution to the problem: (Score:2)
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Your phone can be on it a car without you interacting with it.
Then why is everyone having so much trouble with this??? You can continue to stick your head in the sand all you want but it won't make the problem go away. There's laws and penalties in place already and they have done no good whatsoever to stop the problem, so apparently more draconian measures need to be implemented. Maybe if we force people to not have turned-on phones in their cars, it'll reduce traffic fatalities enough that the self-driving car fanatics will stop trying to push for them to be mand
Watch it not work (Score:2)
The data on cell phones causing an increase in accidents has never been statistically sound. It is based on assuming an untested contrapositive - If some percentage people in accidents were using their phone, then people not in accident were not using their phone.
The upwards trend in the use of mobile phones has coincided with a downwards trend in accident rates. There are many other variables in play.
I don't expect any measurable difference when they do this. They will do it in a way that the efficacy can'
Regulators are idiots (Score:2)
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If I want to be distracted while driving, that is my right! If I want to look at kiddie porn while texting and receiving fellatio from Ron Paul, that is my right!
Nothing in the Constitution gives government the right to regulate driving. NOTHING.
Perhaps it also should be your "right" to pay for 100% of the costs associated with any incident caused by you championing your inalienable right to watch porn while operating 3,000 pounds of steel barrelling 70MPH down a freeway.
Nothing should require an insurance company to pay for your fuckups. NOTHING.
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How could you possibly miss the liberal sarcasm rampant in that post?
Do you mean liberal as in political viewpoint, or liberal as in generous amounts of sarcasm? I need to know so I can be properly offended.
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How could you possibly miss the liberal sarcasm rampant in that post?
In a word? Millennials.
They seem to think they have a "right" to everything these days, and it better be free.
Backwards (Score:2)
Technically, nothing in the constitution gives you any right to drive
You have that backwards. Nothing in the constitution denies you the right to drive. The Constitution is mute on the subject of driving and anything it is mute about is left to the States and the citizens to decide for themselves.
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And as the laws in all 50 states declare it a privileged, my point still stands. Thanks for being a pedantic ass, despite the fact you're still wrong.
Pleasantries on the Constitution (Score:2)
And as the laws in all 50 states declare it a privileged, my point still stands.
Wasn't arguing that your conclusion was invalid. Merely that your interpretation of how the law works was incorrect. For the most part the Constitution basically assumes Citizens have rights and it enumerates ways in which it restricts the government's ability to limit these rights. The 9th amendment also says in essence that rights may exist even when not enumerated. If you think that is unimportant then you are wrong. In principle driving could be considered a right even though as you properly point
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It may be possible to put some sort of device inside the "A" pillar on the drivers side and then have the phone automatically enter Driver mode when the car is in motion and within X distance, about 3 feet, of the device.
Of course then people would be trying to operate their phones holding them at arms length over the passenger seat, which would be even more distracting.
I have also seen research which involved cameras watching the drivers eyes and using that data to understand what the driver is paying atte
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If my next car comes with those features, they will be neutralized one way or another.
A device in the A-Pillar? Remove it. If the car won't work without it, move it to the trunk.
A camera? Remove it. If the car won't work without it, move it to the trunk where it can stare at a picture of my face looking at the right angle. Needs a moving image? sure, I have an old smartphone I can use to display a short video loop of my blinking and looking straight ahead.
No way to know the difference (Score:2)
...between being the driver and passenger's device device?
It won't be able to know. There is no practical means I'm aware of to make the distinction. The only solution would be to disable all devices on that vehicle while it is in motion since there is no means to actually tell the difference.
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Sure, until they lock the cell firmware to an equivalent of UEFI secure boot on intel chips. You can disable it, but it also disables the cell radio and you can't get services. If they're a bitch about it, they'd do like Samsung has with some versions of Knox, where a tripped counter permanently disables some features (like Samsung Pay).
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Not effective enough. Remove all seatbelts and airbags, then install a solid spike on the steering wheel. On every car. Within a year the problem will have weeded itself out.
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For every new regulation, they need to get rid of two. Which two are they getting rid of for this one?
He already said he'd deregulate Wall Street.
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For every new regulation, they need to get rid of two.
Is that a new regulation?
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