Connected devices built into automobiles would have to turn themselves off when the car was in motion under new voluntary guidelines proposed by the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The move is both intuitive and yet seemingly counter to the general trend of increasing connectivity everywhere, including in-car dashboards.
Auto makers don’t seem very pleased with the guidelines, which the government created instead of laws that would have taken much longer to institute, according to a report by Joan Lowy of the Associated Press. The guidelines are subject to a 60-day comment period.
The first phase of those guidelines would prohibit operation while a vehicle was in transit of the following:
- Visual-manual text messaging;
- Visual-manual Internet browsing;
- Visual-manual social media browsing;
- Visual-manual navigation system destination entry by address;
- Visual-manual 10-digit phone dialing;
- Displaying to the driver more than 30 characters of text unrelated to the driving task.
The administration’s announcement said that it is considering second- and third-phase prohibitions, which would include voice controled devices and devices that are not built into the car, “but are brought into the vehicle and used while driving, including aftermarket and portable personal electronic devices such as navigation systems, smart phones, electronic tablets and pads, and other mobile communications devices.”
“Electronic tablets and pads?” How quaint sounding!
Wireless industry analyst Derek Kerton posted the following comment on Wireless Week’s syndication of the AP story:
“The problem with blocking the use of the car services – with dedicated large screens and steering wheel controls – is that users will simply be diverted to their smartphones, with smaller screens, keyboards, etc.
“At least the car UIs can be designed for safety, heads-up displays, larger fonts that are easier to read, controls at your finger-tips, etc. Disable those, and you waste the safety advantages they offer.”
Of course all of this may be moot once our cars can take over the driving themselves. The state of Nevada took a step in that direction recently. Once your car is a self-driving robot, you’ll be able to read and write tweets all you want while in transit, I would assume. At least after a few years of proven driving by robots, that is.
