TwistedAegis
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Well, with cell phones you can potentially put in place controls at a minimal cost. Putting a breathalyzer into each car would probably be expensive.
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Apple Wants To Block Users From Texting And Driving
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
The problem with this proposal is not so much with the actual proposal but the fact that Apple wants to and is allowed to patent it. If it really is a desirable thing then it should be an open protocol agreed on and implemented by a consortium of oem's, not a proprietary Apple feature.
A law is already in place most areas.... Just like with murder, you are never going to stop it outright despite it being wrong. You make behavior illegal, not tools used for basic living. 1984 was only 30 years off I guess.
This little snippet of over-exaggeration made me lol
I was thinking the same thing.
DiabloRojo
Limp Gawd
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You must be about 14.
Otherwise you'd understand the incessantly dwindling freedom under incessantly increasing levels of life micro-management from the government clamoring to special interests and the squeakiest wheel for good publicity rather than using logic and sense.
Get off your phone and drive or else. Or else what? You maim/kill yourself or someone else.
It's already illegal to kill someone who isn't trying to hurt you. It doesn't matter HOW you do it. A knife, a gun, a car or a fucking frozen chicken cannon. What's a consequence of texting and driving? Killing yourself and/or someone else. DON'T FUCKING DO IT. What's a consequence of drinking and driving? Killing yourself and/or someone else. DON'T FUCKING DO IT. What's a consequence of loading a weapon and pulling the trigger while pointing it indiscriminately? Killing yourself and/or someone else. DON'T FUCKING DO IT.
None of the actions themselves need to be illegal when the end result is something that's already illegal. Otherwise it's nothing more than behavior modification, which is the ultimate intent of 1984's thought police.
D
Deleted whining member 223597
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Omg police state, omg! Quite funny coming from people who have never actually lived in a country where you have no rights and there is an actual police state.
TwistedAegis
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Right, because an action that can kill multiple other people shouldn't have any restraints on the precursor actions. Because my "right" to drive and text outweighs X number of people's safety and lives. This isn't some fundamental human right, free speech, whatever. This is fucking texting and driving.
No it isn't and I will explain.
It won't be "worth it" because you haven't considered the real cost.
Apple isn't doing this to save lives. I wouldn't go so far as to say Apple doesn't care, I'd just say that it's not the motivation behind this move. The motivation is the same as it always is, money. Apple hopes that their phones will catch on, that their patents can be defended. They wouldn't have announced anything if they didn't already beleave they had the patent part locked down. At a minimum they hope their new phones will be bought up by the Government so that all government phones will require this tech and only Apples' phones will have it. This secures a large part of the market share at a minimum. At best the Government requires this tech for all phones and now all manufacturers have to pay Apple licensing because they are not going to give Apply a complete monopoly on phones, but they would for this tech licensing.
So this isn't about saving lives, it's about money.
Now we move on to the next point, it's another pie-in-the-sky preventative measure, this will stop needless distracted driving deaths, but it won't. Shit I have seen people loose control of their vehicles for many other reasons that were just as distracting;
Reading old paper maps
Reading paper backed books
Selecting a playlist on their ipod
Opening the wrapper on a new video game they just bought trying to get to the game manual while driving home from Best buy.
Thelist is as endless as the number of morons being borne each year that will do these things. You can't prevent stupidity.
The best you can hope for is to identify it and punish it after the fact. The assholes that will be "prevented" from texting and driving will simply shift their limited intellect to other past times as they cruise the streets and highways and they will continue to get distracted and kill people.
Cell phones don't increase the number of distracted driver accidents, they just become the primary means of distraction.
But that's the problem, its not 1% of people causing a problem, its 80%. Stand on the side of any busy highway during rushhour and count how many people driving by have cellphones on their ears. Its mindboggling!
And somehow passengers will survive. Believe it or not, the earth still rotated back in the 90s before passengers could text on their smartphones.
Neither a car nor a cell phone is tool used for basic living.You make behavior illegal, not tools used for basic living
Have you read 1984? I have and I remember what "newspeak" was. It was a language created by the government to dumb down and limit the thought of the population. Remarkable how similiar texting is to the concept of "newspeak" except in reality the government had nothing to do with "newspeak" instead it was created by the people ...
Artificiary
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Ban the cars? It's the people behind the wheels of those cars who are doing the killing. We should really ban people. Maybe Apple could come up with an app that "disables" the person when they get within proximity of anything that could be used to hurt somebody.
In all seriousness though, this feature is stupid. People have been causing car accidents for as long as cars have been around and for as many reasons as there are things to distract you while driving; disable texting while driving and people will replace it with another distraction.
It would only be interesting to see this implemented if for nothing else than to view the before and after statistics on car wrecks (i.e. did it really make a difference).
Now as a parental control I think this would be an excellent idea, but not as a standard and required feature.
Its not, but if people are ONLY using these devices at a red light, that will be a 500% improvement over the safety risk they pose clacking away drifting out of their lane or rear ending you at 35mph speed differential.
TwistedAegis
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If texting is now one of the main reasons for distracted driving, however, why not attempt to improve upon the safety and attempt to restrict it? I know people always have, and always will, have car accidents. However, the same could be said for X number of safety features. Anti-lock brakes? Just pump them, duh! Car accidents per capita have actually been going down; this is just continuing to iterate on it.
Further, this is potentially the "free market" at work. People don't have to buy these Apple phones, and it isn't a government requirement. Let's see what happens.
Further, this is potentially the "free market" at work. People don't have to buy these Apple phones, and it isn't a government requirement. Let's see what happens.
if you had to slam on the brakes for a stopped car, you weren't paying attention.
Software patents are bullshit and should be abolished. They stifle competition and innovation. I thought about smartphones that don't allow you to text and drive ever since this has been a problem, as have many other people around the world. The "first to file" rule only benefits lawyers, the consumers lose.
Or he's a very dedicated hypermiler...
Gas is expensive man, can't be wasting all that kinetic energy like it grows on trees.The light had turned green, I was a good 10 seconds away from the intersection, by the time I reached the intersection the idiot had still not looked up or moved his car. Since I avoided hitting this idiot it is perfectly clear that I was in-fact paying attention. Me hitting my brakes causes a domino effect as everyone behind me has to do the same as they can't see the idiot stopped at a green light, all they see is the green light.
Thanks for the lecture and being a texter apologist though ...
TwistedAegis
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The light had turned green, I was a good 10 seconds away from the intersection, by the time I reached the intersection the idiot had still not looked up or moved his car. Since I avoided hitting this idiot it is perfectly clear that I was in-fact paying attention. Me hitting my brakes causes a domino effect as everyone behind me has to do the same as they can't see the idiot stopped at a green light, all they see is the green light.
Thanks for the lecture and being a texter apologist though ...
Instead of being a texter apologist though, I would say good driving would be slow down enough to not need to slam on your brakes; what if it had been someone slowly crossing the street, in front of the car. Instead of slamming on your brakes, you keep up your speed, swerve around and hit someone crossing the street. You didn't know they were texting until you got there; someone stopped at a green for 10 seconds is definitely a red flag to slow down.
ZeroAlligator
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Actually the technology does exist to target the phone only when it is in the driver's area of the vehicle. Combine this with the existing sensors that can tell if your other seats are occupied, and you have the start of a fairly effective blocking system. I can think of several other checks and inputs to insure that this system solves the problem it is designed for, and does not create additional issues.
As for busses, I'd imagine that the bus manufacturers could retrofit old busses and manufacture new busses with specially coded signals that would allow bus passengers to use their phones.
As long as the system is standardized (sorry, we'll need some big government intervention on this one) we can actually create a quite effective system. I'm no fan of Assple, but if they lead the way toward safer roadways I have to give them some praise.
-ZA
As for busses, I'd imagine that the bus manufacturers could retrofit old busses and manufacture new busses with specially coded signals that would allow bus passengers to use their phones.
As long as the system is standardized (sorry, we'll need some big government intervention on this one) we can actually create a quite effective system. I'm no fan of Assple, but if they lead the way toward safer roadways I have to give them some praise.
-ZA
That's very clever, but you'd be grandfathering in millions of vehicles that will still be on the road for a decade to come. Heck, one of my cars is 14 years old, and one of my bikes is 24 years old... and I fly a 1940 Fairchild.
So while I love the concept, I think we need immediate government intervention here to create a simple law (not micromanagement) that require carriers to work with vendors to ensure their smartphones have limited functionality in motion, UNLESS it receives a signal from newer vehicles that can tell the phone "yes, I'm being used by a passenger".
And we need this for Android, and we preferably need it BEFORE I'm killed by some a-hole clacking away on his phone and turning me into a pancake on my motorcycle.
I think its a lot more fair to ask people to limit their smartphone use in their cars than it is to require me to drive a Volvo station wagon to ensure I don't die from random aholes plowing into me.
We are also too dumb to use the proper forms of too, to, they're, their, there, accept, except, its, and it's.
Your argument lost credibility right there. Thank you
The problem for the future is when our wonderful, intrusive, babysitting, for your own good, government makes this a requirement by law in cell devices. The same government led patent office gave apple exclusive rights on it and now apple is god king because you either buy their product or license a bullshit patent from them.
Thuleman, I hope it doesn't piss you off if I throw my BS card.
I have no other way of saying this but if Software Patents, or even patents in general, stifle competition, then why does the number of patents keep growing every year?
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm
I would call your attention to the growth in Design Patents granted from 10,630 in 1993 to 23,468 in 2013, over double in ten years. And these are the ones that were granted, not the number of applications which would be considerably more.
By my logic, if Patents stifle competition and innovation, then the more patents that are granted then the less patents that will be generated meaning the number of patents being granted should be dropping, not increasing.
I think you got it backwards, patents secure a company's IP securing their work and forcing competing business to innovate in order to compete.
He's the acception!
Of course your right, I am pretty sure we need a whole new Department, say, the Department of Distracted Driving. The DdD, today announced a new CZar to replace the old CZar, who was killed by a distracted driver last week. That driver was diagnosed with a masturbation related attention disorder and it seems he just can't keep his hands off his own pecker.
OK, I don't get this thinking. Stupid drivers will just find another distraction and the reason is obvious, they're stupid, dense, thick, awaiting the judgment of Darwin. You can't legislate responsibility, you can teach it, and you can punish people for exercising poor judgment but you can't think for them. All you really can do is make them step up and shoulder responsibility for their actions and stop falling for their BS excuses. And stop thinking that government can fix every problem.
2 weeks!?!? Wow, I was in Hawaii for a YEAR before I "saw" my first accident, they must be owning Italy in the accident market! (They aren't).
Rattle
2[H]4U
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They let people with iPhones in cars ?
I haven't seen an accident here in Oregon in at least that long. Apparently Hawaii and Oregon > Italy yay for us. But I have seen several elderly people driving the wrong way on one way streets honking their horns. I wish Apple would make an app or device that could disable elderly drivers.
And Jews, too! Who woulda thunk it?
The light had turned green, I was a good 10 seconds away from the intersection, by the time I reached the intersection the idiot had still not looked up or moved his car. Since I avoided hitting this idiot it is perfectly clear that I was in-fact paying attention. Me hitting my brakes causes a domino effect as everyone behind me has to do the same as they can't see the idiot stopped at a green light, all they see is the green light.
Thanks for the lecture and being a texter apologist though ...
your approach to the situation (or perhaps, distraction?) wasn't correct. "texter apologist" lmao
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Zarathustra[H]
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Sorry, but I have to agree with everyone else thus far.
If you are having to slam on your brakes because someone failed to start moving at a light, then you are at fault, not the person who didn't start moving.
There is a reason insurance companies always hold those rear-ending a car responsible for the accident.
It is your responsibility as a driver to maintain a safe following distance, so that no matter what, you can always slow the car down in a controlled manner without stopping short. You should never assume a car in front of you is going to move and maintain speed until you have to hammer the brakes. If a car is stopped treat it as stopped and slow down, until such time it starts moving, when you can accelerate again.
Ideally in flowing highway traffic you should even keep enough distance that - except for emergencies, or when traffic builds up - you never need to use the brake. If traffic slows down ahead, have enough of a following distance to lift your foot off the accelerator and coast to slow down.
Typically a 2-3 second following distance is appropriate.
This is much longer than most people realize:
At 50mph we are talking ~150-225ft (or 7.5 -11 car lengths)
At 65mph we are talking ~190-290ft (or 9.5 -14.5 car lengths)
At 80mph we are talking ~235-350ft (or 11.5 - 17.5 car lengths)
Technically people not observing these distances should be risking tickets for tailgating.
It's particularly frustrating when you try to maintain a safe following distance and people keep merging in front of you, because they don't know how to drive...
Not only is this the legal way to drive (and a lot safer) but it will typically safe you a ton of gas. When driving, smoother motion is better. Sudden or hard acceleration, sudden or hard stops and sudden or hard turns are to be avoided whenever possible.
The public roads are not a race, and there is no need to show off. If you are into that sort of thing, build yourself a race car and take it to the track.
Zarathustra[H]
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Yeah, there is no such thing as a "software patent". There are just patents, and they exist to ENCOURAGE competition, by ensuring those who spend the billions to develop something that they won't just be copied by others, for a period of time. Without them, large investments would be too risky.
The real problem with patents is twofold:
1.) Overworked people in the patent office not understanding the technologies they are issuing patents for, thus often issuing duplicate patents, or patents for obvious things (like a rectangle with rounded corners). According to patent law, a patent is supposed to be novel, useful and non-obvious. This is often not the case, and thus things get fought out in the courts...
2.) First to file, vs. prior art. We used to have a prior art system, which meant that it didn't matter if someone else beat you to the patent office with an application, if you can show that you were doing it first. The rest of the world was using a first to file system, which resulted in many copies of U.S. patents being filed first in other countries thus circumventing the purpose of the patent process. We eventually moved to this system to fire back at those doing it to us, but the best way possible would be if the entire world moved to a "prior art" type system.
DiabloRojo
Limp Gawd
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No, this isn't about texting and driving. This is about pointless, superfluous laws or restrictions designed to funnel people's thoughts through a metaphorical corral. It's behavior modification at its most basic level, its fucking sick and insulting to those of us who have the cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences of our own (or someone else's) actions.
Pandering to the lowest common denominator is not the way to elevate the species.
I agree that people in this country are terrible drivers. A country where the majority of people don't know how to shift, whose car culture is based around muscle cars and who like Nascar, who have never faced real traffic in their lives and have no clue about looking ahead or managing roadspace, who keep getting bigger and bigger cars and are terrible parkers - no law can make up for basic driving skills and common sense.
Exactly. I don't text and drive, but I demand exclusive control over my tools. I don't want my own discretion and judgment to be overridden by some bureaucratic know-it-all, both on principle and because of the simple fact that they can't anticipate every possible future context (and neither can I). "If it saves even one life, third party dictatorial control over your devices is worth it?" What if it costs two, thanks to an edge or corner case someone was too ignorant or arrogant to consider?