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Transportation Technology

Massachusetts Legislature Moving To Ban Wearing VR Headsets While Driving (bostonglobe.com) 203

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Boston Globe: William Straus, like many others, saw the videos in recent days of people behind the wheel of a Tesla in Autopilot mode, sporting their new Apple Vision Pro headsets and typing on an invisible keyboard. "They're all over the Internet, these idiots driving Teslas with their hands up in the air," the state representative said. Some claimed their video was staged. No matter: Straus wants to make it illegal. The Legislature's transportation committee on Wednesday approved language that would ban the use of the new virtual reality headset, or other similar technologies, while behind the wheel in Massachusetts.

Straus, the committee's House chair, said he crafted language with his staff over Monday night and Tuesday morning, and added it to an existing proposal that would, among other things, bar drivers from recording or broadcasting themselves while behind the wheel. That it advanced out of committee less than 48 hours later qualifies as light speed by Beacon Hill standards. (The bill must still pass the full House and Senate.) [...]

"This is absolutely the correct time to wall this off," said Straus, a Mattapoisett Democrat. "People who operate motor vehicles already have too many distractions." Straus' proposal would explicitly not allow drivers to wear, hold, or "otherwise utilize or interact with a spatial computer," or an augmented reality or mixed reality device. It also would ban drivers from viewing any video, images or text unrelated to operating or navigating the car, be it displayed on a screen or "otherwise worn as a headset or elsewhere on the operator's body." Motorists would face the same fines they do now for using their phone to text while driving: $100 for a first violation, $250 for a second violation and $500 for every violation after that.
The driver in the viral video posted on YouTube and linked above said that it was a "skit" that he had made with friends and that he wasn't arrested. "[I] was in the right place at the right time," he told Gizmodo. "That's why we filmed the police."
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Massachusetts Legislature Moving To Ban Wearing VR Headsets While Driving

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  • by PubJeezy ( 10299395 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @10:33PM (#64223818)
    Personally, I think using legislation as a part of a negative engagement marketing is a form of treason.
  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @10:35PM (#64223824) Homepage

    Is it really necessary to have yet another law outlawing a specific kind of reckless driving?

    Sadly, the answer is probably yes.

    • by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @10:52PM (#64223844)

      It's necessary to specify wearing the gadget does indeed qualify as reckless driving.

      And the penalty is too low. Multiply by 10 please. If you afford $3500 on a VR rig $100 is beneath notice. If they do it three times their license should be suspended too.

      • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday February 08, 2024 @04:59AM (#64224146)

        Why is it necessary? How weak is the current law that allows people to do something obviously distracting to continue to do so without every single device spelled out. If anything the present law should be fixed, not amended with a list of banned things.

        Also I don't know about MA but many countries in the world have a points based system. The points are a far greater deterrent than anything else. Most people can't balance the risk / reward of their stupid actions when faced with a $100 fine or a $5000 fine and when they get them it's a temporary financial hit, not often one that impacts their lives.

        On the other hand most people do grasp the seriousness of only having 1 point left on their license and the impact a 6 month driving ban can have. That changes the discussion from "well I guess I just won't wear my VR headset anymore" to "well I guess I'll obey ALL the road rules".

        • Why is it necessary? How weak is the current law that allows people to do something obviously distracting to continue to do so without every single device spelled out.

          Because the same people who will argue their free speech is being violated by having to mark their AI generated content are the same ones who will try to find any excuse why wearing a headset while driving in an automated vehicle doesn't pose a danger. Or the same ones who wear earphones/air pods while driving will say it's not a danger.

          To an

          • People can argue a lot. I'm actually happy to have an argument about these right now because you said something I agree with and something I disagree with.

            You can go to court and argue that putting a screen with additional input latency, lower visual acuity, and restricted field of view on in the car isn't risky, but you'll be quickly shot down as they inherently are.

            But on the flip side the inability to hear something is far less clear and far less severe. Driving is not inherently an audible experience an

        • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

          Why is it necessary?

          It brings attention to the issue in the state with both drivers and law enforcement and removes any possible legal ambiguity around the issue, making it harder to argue against in court.

      • by flink ( 18449 )

        Your license in MA is already automatically suspended for 3 moving violations in an 18 month period, IIRC.

        • the last time I got three moving violations in an 18 month period in MA, admittedly some years ago, it came with an automatic get out of jail card, if you attended a one day driving course on the weekend, for $75, you were then deemed good to go and no other punishment (other than the one for that last violation) was applied.

          I opted to spend saturday in the BS driving class and pay the $75

          • by Binestar ( 28861 )
            Did it improve your driving so you stopped getting moving violations?
            • No. I sold my Red Camaro Z28 and Bought a Black Mustang... it seems red Camaro's attract MA State Police, whilst Black Mustangs do not. Hell, for the first time in my life I got a warning, with that black mustang... with all my previous red cars, I never got a warning.
      • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Thursday February 08, 2024 @08:43AM (#64224506)

        It's necessary to specify wearing the gadget does indeed qualify as reckless driving.

        From the videos I’ve seen, Apple appears to disable certain features (like video watching) once the headset detects a significant amount of motion. This was even demonstrated by someone riding in a subway. If it’s possible to walk around wearing the googles and still see, then how do you make the jump right to reckless driving when all manner of sunglasses are legally allowed?

        And the penalty is too low. Multiply by 10 please. If you afford $3500 on a VR rig $100 is beneath notice. If they do it three times their license should be suspended too.

        Distracted Driving should already be getting punished like this. I no longer fear the select few in society who drive drunk on roadways. I far more fear the addicted adult teenager who can’t put their fucking smartphone down for more than 3 minutes, because that seems to represent most of the drivers behind the wheel now.

        • If it’s possible to walk around wearing the googles and still see, then how do you make the jump right to reckless driving when all manner of sunglasses are legally allowed?

          I'm sorry but this is a truly dumb point. Here's a few things to consider:
          1. Driving and walking provide you with inherently different reaction times to take action in normal circumstances. You can think long and hard about how to walk. It's why we let 80 year old blind people walk down the street with a stick but don't let them behind the wheel of a car.
          2. The risk is wildly different. If you run into me while walking you may very well get pushed out of the way (or apologised to if you run into a Canadian)

        • I no longer fear the select few in society who drive drunk on roadways.

          Select few?!?!?

          Wow...you think somehow today, that there are "fewer" and limited number of people that drink and drive...?

          No way.

          Quick example...drive by all the bars you know of, see all the people in there drinking.

          Then look at the parking lot.

          You kid yourself if you don't believe that 99% of those cars are being driving home by patrons you see in there drinking.

          That's the easy one....plenty of people leave home with a beer or

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        It's necessary to specify wearing the gadget does indeed qualify as reckless driving.

        And the penalty is too low. Multiply by 10 please. If you afford $3500 on a VR rig $100 is beneath notice. If they do it three times their license should be suspended too.

        This is why most countries also have the concept of demerit points. Here in the UK, get a speeding fine and you get a £100 fine and 3 demerit points on your license for 3 years. Accrue 12 demerit points and you win a free holiday from driving. £100 is trifling to me (sure I'd rather keep the 100 quid but it's not breaking the bank) so it's the demerit points that will sting. Otherwise you'd just have relatively well to do people violating the law willy nilly as there's no real punishment.

        The

        • by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
          We have Points on drivers licenses in the U.S. as well. In Wisconsin for example minor traffic violations earn you 2 points where major ones earn you 6 points. If you earn 12 points in 12 months you have your license revoked. https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages... [wisconsindot.gov]
          • We have Points on drivers licenses in the U.S. as well.

            Some states do.

            I personally have never lived in a state that has a points system.

            And I believe the states that do have them...it's on a 12 mo basis and after that slate is wiped and you start over, right?

        • I got a speeding ticket in the UK once... it arrived to my home about 6 months after I had been last in the UK. The next time I went to the UK, i found the nearest Bobby and asked him what I should do as the date was maybe 3 months past for me to dispute or pay. He told me to ignore it. Not to worry. So, I did so. Never heard or saw anything else from it.
      • Now they show it with the Apple Vision, but this was already possible and done using the Quest/Pico/htc standalone headsets with the newer colorpassthrough.
      • by GoRK ( 10018 )

        No, actually it's not necessary to specify this; the existing laws already have enough breadth to cover the case. When you start applying specific scope-limiting definitions on top of broadly applicable laws they cease being broadly applicable.

        So, the real situation is actually the completely opposite of your intuition, and if the fine gentleman from Massachusetts passed his stupid notion by anyone even remotely experienced with law he would have been immediately rebuked. This is a waste of time, and also h

    • by Xenx ( 2211586 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @10:59PM (#64223848)
      There is no probably about it, and it isn't exactly something that you should need to feed "sad" about. Less about this exact case, but about the practice of adding narrowly defined laws on top of broad laws. It's easy enough to make jokes about common sense not being so common. However, the reality is it's true. Not everyone sees the world in the same way, and what is obvious to some is not obvious to all. The more specific a law is, the harder it is to argue over interpretation. You still want the broader law as a catch-all, but if you want to knowingly prevent/reduce something specific spell it out.
      • I mostly agree with you. Unfortunately, the more specific a law is, the easier it is to point out some way in which the law doesn't apply to your specific situation. "Officer, it's not a VR headset! It's mounted on my glasses, not my head, so it's legal!"

        • I mostly agree with you. Unfortunately, the more specific a law is, the easier it is to point out some way in which the law doesn't apply to your specific situation. "Officer, it's not a VR headset! It's mounted on my glasses, not my head, so it's legal!"

          Arguably they're reckless driving already, but reckless driving is a matter of interpretation so someone with a good lawyer (or whom the cops feel favourably towards) is more likely to get off.

          By putting a specific law in place a violation becomes much clearer and harder to dodge the ticket.

          • That good lawyer will get the idiot off with or without the finely-targeted law. Clearer, yes. Harder to dodge? No. There's always a loophole.

        • by mjwx ( 966435 )

          I mostly agree with you. Unfortunately, the more specific a law is, the easier it is to point out some way in which the law doesn't apply to your specific situation. "Officer, it's not a VR headset! It's mounted on my glasses, not my head, so it's legal!"

          This, specific laws end up coming about mostly due to two reasons.
          1. People don't think it's illegal, ergo need to be specifically educated.
          2. Too many loopholes in catchall laws. "Driving without due care and attention" (in the UK) has a greater burden of evidence as there are a lot of ways to create enough doubt to get the charge dismissed. This is really a law that is reserved for people who were caught doing something really stupid, hence the penalties are worse (up to and including disqualification i

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by will_die ( 586523 )
      Yep, because lots of states did a poor job of defining the problem.
      A few states straight out make illegal to use anything that distracts your attention while driving. By distract they mean anything that diverts attention from driving. Don't think anyone will make the case these don't do that.
      A major of states ban screens showing movies and tv but don't mention streaming, from the driver viewing area. So not illegal here.
      Then massachusetts allows you to use any device provided it is hands free and you c
    • by Samantha Wright ( 1324923 ) on Thursday February 08, 2024 @01:24AM (#64224002) Homepage Journal

      Personally I found this [youtube.com] really eye-opening, so...

    • by jhoegl ( 638955 )
      Is this what we should be surprised about? Or the fact that, Democracy, which is often said to act slowly... is acting pretty quickly.

      So they can be quick about it, when they care about something that is easy.
      • I'm not sure that acting quickly, is a benefit. Usually, knee-jerk actions turn out to be wrong. Not that driving with a VR headset should be allowed, but rather, technology changes quickly, so the law is probably going to become obsolete somewhere around the time it going into effect.

    • "The driver in the viral video posted on YouTube and linked above said that it was a "skit" that he had made with friends and that he wasn't arrested."

      He wasn't arrested because his "skit" wasn't illegal. The law doesn't differentiate between a VR headset and sunglasses. Try that after this SPECIFIC form of reckless driving is outlawed and see if you don't get arrested.

      Stupid people pushing the limits of what is legal. This is why we have stupid warnings like "do not use this hair dryer in your bathtub
      • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Thursday February 08, 2024 @08:43AM (#64224502) Homepage

        He wasn't arrested because his "skit" wasn't illegal.

        I don't think we can draw this conclusion, that the reason he wasn't arrested was because it wasn't illegal.

        Have you been arrested every time you broke a traffic law? Every time you didn't come to a stop at a stop sign, or drove 5 mph over the limit, or went through a red light when you didn't quite make it on yellow? I don't think so. Reckless driving isn't necessarily an offense that one would be arrested for, it's generally more of a citation kind of thing. And there's no guarantee that you'll actually be caught when your making this "skit."

        Police have a lot of discretion when they pull somebody over. They can choose to just give you a warning, or a ticket, or arrest you, depending on the factors in play. So the fact that this guy wasn't arrested, proves nothing about the legality of what he did.

    • Is it really necessary to have yet another law outlawing a specific kind of reckless driving?

      Sadly, the answer is probably yes.

      There's a reason there are warning labels not to do something with a product. Someone, somewhere did something with the product which injured or killed them, and here we are. It's why hair dryers have a warning label not to use while in the shower, bathing, or while sleeping [reddit.com].

      • And those warning labels accomplish nothing. They don't prevent people from doing stupid things, and they don't prevent people from suing when they get hurt doing those stupid things. They don't even prevent people from being awarded money when they get hurt doing those stupid things.

        What they actually accomplish, is appeasing the staff lawyer who is paid to come up with ways to make the company appear to be more responsible than it actually is.

        The fact that people do stupid stuff, even when there are warni

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      Is it really necessary to have yet another law outlawing a specific kind of reckless driving?

      No, a simple administrative order that clarifies that using a VR headset while driving counts as reckless driving would probably do.

      But this way has two advantages: a) it makes headlines, so the drivers actually know about it and b) it's more difficult to challenge it, because people who can afford a $3500 device also can afford a lawyer to challenge the ticket.

      • As for making headlines, police can simply release a statement saying that they are concerned about people driving with VR headsets, and announce that they *will* arrest people caught doing so. That should be enough to make the news. And like the law itself, it will still accomplish nothing. The people who do this stuff, don't check first whether it's legal.

    • Legislators pass all kinds of dumb laws to make it seem like they are doing something. That's why there is a law making it illegal to steal a car, and another one making it illegal to steal a car when someone is in it, and another one if you are doing it with a gun (but not a knife.)

      The first time I noticed it was all the online fraud laws. Defrauding someone of their money is illegal. If you do it in person, it's illegal. If you do it over the phone, it's illegal. You don't need another law saying it's ill

      • 100% this, they are just trying to give the impression to their constituents that they are doing something.
      • Very insightful!

        "I will not eat them in a house, I will not eat them with a mouse, I will not eat them in a box I will not eat them with a fox, I will not eat them here of there I will not eat them anywhere, I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them Sam I Am."

        Maybe we could make these redundant laws into a children's book.

  • by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @10:39PM (#64223834)

    Why is it necessary to pass a law after the Apple one comes out? Was it legal to wear an Oculus Rift before this?

    • by ACForever ( 6277156 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @11:01PM (#64223850)
      apple users are a special kind of stupid and arrogant
      • by GoRK ( 10018 )

        more like legislators and their constituents are getting stupider. there is no need to pass additional laws for something that is plainly within the scope of the existing laws. It's counterproductive and can erode the scope of the original laws. It also limits potential future applications where AR/XR technologies could be used to reduce driver distraction and improve awareness, ya know, just like is already being done in things like race cars and fighter planes.

    • No it was not legal. It’s because of this asshole. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/t... [cbsnews.com]

      I’m curious as to why you would object to a new law being proposed.

      • In my state distracted driving being illegal is already a law. This should be obvious to everyone, but why need such a specific law when a more general law already exists that covers even the special Apple people?

        Just enforce the laws that exist, why add duplicate laws when we can't even enforce the ones we already have?
        • Many people don't believe that being in the Apple Vision Pro with full pass through is distracting. Try the AVP out and you'll see what I mean.

          • Many people don't believe that "a little alcohol" impairs driving ability.

            Many people don't believe the five 100ml shots of hard liquor they imbibed in 30 minutes are too much to drive.

            Many people who drive after drinking don't believe they drive a lot worse than usual.

            Have a 200ml glass of any vodka, climb into a fast car and you'll see what I mean.

            • No excuse for impaired driving. The problem is the standards are so low that many totally sober people are as bad or worse drivers than some impaired people. They need to increase the lowest common denominator to narrow that distinction.
              • If you can drive safely with a BAC of .10 then have at it. If cops can drive while operating a laptop it proves that either they're given too much leeway or that it's possible to do safely regardless of your uniform. Similarly, if you are not inebriated or distracted, but are too inept to drive safely, I don't care **why** you are a bad driver... I care **that** you are a bad driver. We need to stop the nonsense of targeting suspected causes of outcomes we dislike and simply punish based upon outcomes.
                • If you can drive safely with a BAC of .10 then have at it.

                  You can't so no, don't.

                  We need to stop the nonsense of targeting suspected causes of outcomes we dislike and simply punish based upon outcomes.

                  No we don't because at that point it's too late.

                  It absolutely should be illegal to recklessly endanger other people even if by blind luck you manage to not kill or maim anyone. When you fuck up it is too late for the person you killed.

                  If the outcome is all that counts, then there's no reason for attempted murd

                  • I'm surprised every time that it is necessary to explain in detail something that is so obvious.

                  • If you can drive safely with a BAC of .10 then have at it.

                    You can't so no, don't.

                    Sure you can. That used to be the limit....then they dropped it to a TOO LOW value of 0.08.

                    A grown man having a glass of wine on an empty stomach can get dangerously close to that low number and is not even remotely dangerous on the road.

            • Umm, yes. So? That's why there are DUI accidents. We're talking about the AVP here, what's people's opinion of alcohol to do with anything .. other than prove my point that people will do things they believe are safe (even if they aren't). The previous VR headsets sucked so bad they gave nobody (or hardly anyone) the illusion of it being safe to drive with.

              • So? So just like any other driving impairment that creates danger on the roads because some cretin believes it is safe for him to put it on, it will have to be legislated away.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Even if you don't use any of the features of the AVP (in which case why bother wearing it?), you still have outstanding safety issues.

            There is latency between the cameras picking up what is happening outside, and the screens displaying it. It's claimed to be 12ms, but I don't think anyone has actually tested it, and you know what Apple are like with numbers.

            Then there is the battery. It could die, and the wire gets in the way.

            And finally you have general reliability concerns. If this thing craps out at rand

            • Well, yeah .. I wasn't advocating it .. I'm saying it works good enough that some people trying it can be convinced that it's fine to drive with it. A lot more than say people who would drive wearing a blindfold or Meta Quest.

            • And you forgot to add the most important: field of view.

              Apple's design for the Vision Pro blocks peripheral vision.

              So even if its latency is indeed as imperceptible as Apple pretends it to be (we wonder) and its resolution is high enough (it's definitely NOT: the "4k" pixels are spread over a much larger part of the view, and even with the "pin-cushion" distortion, resolution in the center isn't that high. See, e.g., analysis by KGuttag), the field of view in the Vision is only in front of the users, there'

        • you'd be amazed at the number of people for whom "This should be obvious to everyone..." does not apply and their lawyer got them off when they were caught.
      • Wow. Dude is driving a Cybertruck while using his Apple Vision Pro in the dorkiest manner possible. It's like you get two ultra-assholes for the price of one.

      • No it was not legal. It’s because of this asshole. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/t... [cbsnews.com]

        But the point is the same. This arsehole is just a Apple idiot. Where were the laws when Meta idiots actually had accidents? https://www.barstoolsports.com... [barstoolsports.com]

        I’m curious as to why you would object to a new law being proposed.

        A specific law for a specific gadget is a sign of a poorly written road safety law. The existing law should be amended and strengthened to include general senseless distractions, not just carve out a special case for a VR headset. Otherwise you're playing cat and mouse with stupid people.

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      Oculus and its like are VR headsets - when you put them on the only thing you see is whatever the screen shows you, some app or game.

      Apple's device while technically VR is marketed as AR - most of the time you still see your environment as if it were transparent.

      Similar to the way where people understand it's stupid to read a newspaper while driving, but think that a quick look at your phone can't hurt, they think that since you still kind of see the road, it's ok to use the Vision Pro while driving.

      Yes, pe

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Quality of passthrough function of external world is what enabled this to be feasible in the first place. Oculus Rift's quality is nowhere near this.

      This is one thing that Apple really got right on this thing. Both delay on the passthrough and quality of image it outputs for your eyes is very close to original.

  • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @11:50PM (#64223918) Homepage Journal

    First they tell me I can't drive with sunglasses at night, and now I can't drive with VR goggles. I feel like they are trying to tell me that I'm not allowed to do anything when I'm driving except drive. BORING

    • First they tell me I can't drive with sunglasses at night, and now I can't drive with VR goggles. I feel like they are trying to tell me that I'm not allowed to do anything when I'm driving except drive. BORING

      They can take my spiderman mask with eyeholes made by a pencil off my cold dead face!

    • I don't think that there was ever an actual law against doing that, despite a certain 80's song making it sound cool.

      Although, it wouldn't surprise me if Massachusetts outlawed it. They like legislating everything.

      • Depends on who I meant by "they". My parents told me I couldn't, they had a lot of extra rules and usually explained to me that it was because it was illegal (my parents probably believed it too), but most of their advice turned out to be rubbish. For what it's worth people do wear special tinted glasses at night for nightblindness and I don't think anyone has gotten a ticket over it.

        [Typed on a smartphone while driving - J/K]

  • I see people texting every day, wearing a VR headset while driving should cost you your license.
  • Maybe, just maybe.,.. hear me out here... write laws that target effects rather than causes and you won't have to cover every possible scenario. We didn't need a ban on texting while driving, we needed to expand the reckless driving laws to cover dangerous behavior like failing to maintain a lane, following too closely, sitting at a green light for an excessive amount of time while conditions are safe to proceed, abrupt stops for no reason, driving abnormally slow, etc. That the driver is texting isn't wh
    • Not sure what the US laws are like (and it's no doubt different in every state), but generally you want both. In the UK, there's been an offence of "driving without due care and attention" for pretty much as long as cars have existed. So even though mobile phones didn't exist when the law was passed, the police can still pull you over for texting and driving. But you can argue as to exactly how much is "due" care and attention. So there's also a specific law against using your phone, which gives much less w

  • The future is starting to look more and more dorky.
  • Give it a decade and these same totalitarians will be mandating AR systems for driving.

    I mean, sure I would like my windshield to boldly highlight the deer on the side of the road at night.

    But not if a windshield costs $6000 to replace.

    These people can't handle the idea of tradeoffs.

    There are already distracted driving laws so he's just an attention whore.

    • The summary made it sound like HUD type technology and use cases would be exempted, although if you're a trail blazer in that regard then I'd suppose you're still going to end up pulled over a few times.
  • I cannot find the actual text of the proposed bill, but if you ban viewing of text unrelated to operating or navigating the car you would have to cover your radio display. Most modern radios have RDS capabilities and display station ID along with song and artist. And those displays are text based.
    Will the bill be amended to allow you to read what station or other entertainment source you are listening to or will looking at your Spotify list when selecting be criminal?

  • The fact that such a common sense thing has to spelled out and made illegal is depressing.

    Here in Vitginia, I see niteits wearing AirPods or even full headphones while driving. Now, with so many EVs on the road, these same nitwits will be wearing the Apple Vision Pros while behind the driver's wheel.

    And, like the use of marijuana and other distractions while driving, cops won't or can't pull them over.

    As someone else stated, pull them over AND make the fine in 10x or more the price of the headset, require

  • Don't they already have a law against "driving without due care and attention" ?

    We do in the UK and this would cover that scenario - and any others where some idiot was not paying full attention. There are large numbers of prosecutions for imbeciles driving whilst using a phone, watching DVD players, shaving, putting on make up etc. etc. The fact the car's on autopilot is irrelevant. If you're in the vechile you're in charge of it.

    Any moron driving a vehicle doing something like this should just be fined

  • So, this is a combination of people who believe Tesla auto-pilot is actually a fully autonomous driving situation, without need of supervision, combined with people who have enough money to buy a first-gen Apple device, but not enough brains to realize that they need to pay at least a modicum of attention to the road while being in a "auto-pilot" enabled Tesla. It would seem a perfect storm of stupid entitlement, and should be cracked down on hard. We may not have made stupidity illegal, but it may be time

  • https://www.digitaltrends.com/... [digitaltrends.com]

    The F-35 helmet utilizes cameras mounted around the aircraft to create a virtual invisible jet for the pilot. The pilot can look down at the floor of the aircraft, and see the ground below. They can look behind themselves, and not see a headrest.

    I think there is some room for headsets to make driving safer. Glass cockpit, virtual instruments and rear view mirrors, augmented reality for night vision and things we don't have at all, like cues to switch lanes to avoid pothol

    • Given their new virtual  headset environment  will auto-drivers require an engineering degree and three (3) years of intensive training? Makes for a pretty exclusive cadre of car drivers ... instead of anyone who can use a rear-view mirror and gas-gauge. 
  • Wearing a VR headset while DRIVING isn't already banned? Good Lord!

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