"The relationship consumers have with their phones is just too great, and the ability to slide under the eye of the law is just too easy. Embedding lock-out devices is the only solution."
Not even close to the only solution and absolutely not the best solution. The ultimate solution would be autonomous cars. If people can't pry themselves away from their phones, pry their steering wheels away from them. Best for everyone anyway. Fewer accidents. No road rage. No illegal parking or moving violations. And so on.
How about police doing their job and ticketing people? My wife was sent to the hospital and our VW totaled when she was rear ended by a distracted driver. No ticket was issued.
There is no way an iPhone can determine whether someone is a driver or a passenger or a rider on a bus.
The problem is even when a ticket is issued, it's almost always only AFTER an accident has taken place. Imagine if they only ticketed drunk drivers if they caused an accident. I know police forced are already heavily strained as it is, which lets these "minor offense" go under the radar. The more people get away with it the more they do it. How often have you seen people in their cars talking on the phone without a hand-free device in broad daylight? Clearly current enforcement efforts have not been a deterrent to this behavior, and after an accident is too late.
wiggin said: Clearly current enforcement efforts have not been a deterrent to this behavior, and after an accident is too late.
Same attitude with respect to reckless driving, speeding, not wearing seat belts, child passengers without a car seat, etc. Some people just don't care about abiding by the law.
I have this very feature on my iPhone! It's called. 'I don't text while I'm driving'. You must be joking. There is too much education being spread about what happens when you text and drive. Why should everyone have this on their phone, when most lucid, INTELLIGENT individuals know how to use, and not use their phones while driving? Several others on this board have mentioned personal responsibility. Where is it? Why should Apple have to place a 'lock' on phones, when people should know the dangers of using their phone while driving by now?
In related future news: "Class-action suit demands Apple remove lock-out system on iPhone because it prevented kidnapped girl in trunk from calling for help while the car was moving."
If you think this is far-fetched, then you haven't seen the litany of ridiculous lawsuits clogging our legal system (my cousin's a corporate lawyer, and she's shown it all to me).
Just as long as they make it for all manufactures and operating systems so nobody in the entire world can text while driving. This means all politicians, heads of state, executives, and all the people in the class action suit. All or none.
Should I be surprised that this has been initiated in California. Idiotic. It's bad enough that a passenger can't change settings on my car head unit while the car is in motion.
Forcing a technological solution to what is a behavioural problem never works. Over the years, we've had a few people try that at my work. For some reason, the solution of "Tell them not to do X" was considered unreasonable, and yet any technological solution was going to be nigh on impossible to implement and maintain.
The way to stop it is education and enforcement. You need both, because if you just say "You might cause an accident" people will think "They mean other people, I'm a good driver, and don't have to stop at stop signs either". So you need to actually have people get pulled over and booked for breaking the law (distracted driving is already illegal in most places).
Of course, then you'll get people accusing the police of revenue raising, rather than being concerned about safety, just like they do about speeding.
Well...then I guess beer companies need to add special locking caps that automatically close when you are in a car. Budweiser is putting profits above public safety.
It needs to go a step further. The can/bottle needs to predict if you will drive and lock before you become inebriated.
If Apple loses this lawsuit (no way in hell that it should lose this) and implements a lock out system then they will get sued by some NPE that claims a patent to lock out devices while driving occurs.
Would love to see proximity sensor. Bet the person would lean over in the passengers seat to text. Only solution is to make a button/link for an officer to see if your phone was used for texting in last 15min while they have you pulled over. Then write the ticket. For gods sake people out the phone down and drive!
What about passengers?
What about passengers on a commuter train or subway?
What about passengers on buses?
What about people in airplanes?
How about just putting the blame on irresponsible users rather than punishing everybody?
Exactly. To ensure the lockout only applies to the driver of a vehicle, the phone would have to work together with a sensor system built into the car. Carmakers have to introduce such a system before phones can utilize it. Apple have done nothing wrong.
This is the approach our society takes to problems. Rather than reaching out and trying to improve the sense of personal responsibility and character among people, which admittedly can be challenging, we instead create laws to restrict people's bad choices.
It's based on good intentions but ultimately it will fail spectacularly. Restricting people's behaviour does not change their character and the more and more laws we have the less we feel personal responsibility. This approach will eventually collapse with painful results.
Yep it's the 'new deal'. Let the other guy whether it be government, Apple, shooting people at an airport. Let the 'other guy' pay for my bad decisions. It's Apple's fault that I text and drive and lose control of my car. How bloody ridiculous and moronic this country is becoming everyday. We can all hope this gets thrown out of court but anything's possible these days. Sad really.
Whoever the Attorney's are they are working on a flawed argument. To target specifically Apple they must prove conclusively that every other smartphone maker and phone maker in general whether it's a smartphone or a featurephone or totally dumb phone carries the "Lock-out" feature.
Using the argument that Apple filed a patent for such a feature does not mean that they have the technology available to them to provide that patented feature, they merely have a patent for a idea and how in theory it would be implemented. If they filed a patent for a flying car would that mean that they actually have that technology and of course as we have all seen over the years Apple has filed patents and never implemented the feature since filing, similarly this is the same basis that Patent Trolls operate. They have patents for 'ideas' or 'flights of fantasy' and there was never any actual product or device or system implemented but a feature similar enough to be shoehorned into fitting a case for a breach of their patent allows them to file a case in a court against their target(s). Apple have simply chosen to create a patent simply so that they can protect themselves from a patent troll by having a prior registered patent for that feature.
Similarly the technology, as others previously have stated, would require a system that identifies from a driver or passenger or whether it is on a public transit system which is something that has not been available.
We also have the simple case that the cases in question base their claim on a driver that was using an iPhone, if it was say an Oppo brand phone would they go after Oppo or go after Google because it is running Android or an Android derivative or whether they would again blame Apple because Apple happen to have a patent and then claim that because Apple had filed and was awarded the patent that it prevented users of Android and Windows based devices from implementing such functionality.
The question would also be raised that the driver is the one at fault, that Apple is not required under any law of the land, namely the United States, to decide whether someone should or should not use a product that they purchased and wholly own, in the manner that they so wish and that it would be up to Federal or State law to implement a legal remedy which we have seen they have failed dismally to implement with harsh enough penalties and with adequate enforcement for simply speaking on a mobile phone or even using a seatbelt.
This will be an interesting case and I look forward to seeing the quagmire the plaintiff's get themselves into
Texting while driving (moving vehicle) should carry the same punishment as DUI.
The other day I was in a hurry and entered map location while driving. NOT a great idea. The problem for me is that Siri is not always very good, or there is a delay before response. The failure of Siri is very frustrating and more distracting than texting itself imo.
Having said that - I would not complain if a one year driving ban was automatic when busted for playing with a phone whilst driving. If intensively policed for a few months it would quickly reduce twd to virtually zero.
I understand the resistance - more government control, but this is not like seat belts or helmets for mc's. It's not about you the driver, it's about the other people you are likely to kill or maim.
Comments
If you think this is far-fetched, then you haven't seen the litany of ridiculous lawsuits clogging our legal system (my cousin's a corporate lawyer, and she's shown it all to me).
Just as long as they make it for all manufactures and operating systems so nobody in the entire world can text while driving. This means all politicians, heads of state, executives, and all the people in the class action suit. All or none.
Forcing a technological solution to what is a behavioural problem never works. Over the years, we've had a few people try that at my work. For some reason, the solution of "Tell them not to do X" was considered unreasonable, and yet any technological solution was going to be nigh on impossible to implement and maintain.
The way to stop it is education and enforcement. You need both, because if you just say "You might cause an accident" people will think "They mean other people, I'm a good driver, and don't have to stop at stop signs either". So you need to actually have people get pulled over and booked for breaking the law (distracted driving is already illegal in most places).
Of course, then you'll get people accusing the police of revenue raising, rather than being concerned about safety, just like they do about speeding.
I'm not saying I agree with this (other than people shouldn't be idiots when driving), just trying to provide some context and clarity.
Having said that - I would not complain if a one year driving ban was automatic when busted for playing with a phone whilst driving. If intensively policed for a few months it would quickly reduce twd to virtually zero.
I understand the resistance - more government control, but this is not like seat belts or helmets for mc's. It's not about you the driver, it's about the other people you are likely to kill or maim.