"Last month, the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency published a dense document with guidelines for automakers on how to minimize the distractions caused by in-vehicle electronics. Buried among equations for determining optimal display viewing angles and testing procedures is the recommendation that navigation devices should only show static or near-static images, which would essentially eliminate their usefulness. "
formatting link
But if it saves one child's life...
On the other hand, I can still use my GPS to get to the fridge.
We could virtually eliminate child deaths due to car accidents by restricting cars to areas outside the city limits.
If you needed to have your car in the city, you'd have to disconnect the battery to eliminate distraction and push it to your destination. A small price to pay to eliminate child deaths.
While you're in there, bring me a beer...please? I gotta hit the road.
Hi, Up here we have anti-distraction law while driving. You don't mess with GPS, Cell phone, reading map, doing make up, drinking coffee,etc. will cause a ticket and 175.00 fine first time. Also you can't smoke in a car when kids are on board. For that it is 1000.00 ticket.
Hmm. I was thinking about purchasing a new GPS to replace my ~ 5 year old unit, simply because it's cool. Now I'm going to be watching this issue more closely so that if this looks like it's really going to happen I can purchase a useful GPS unit before they are no longer available.
I'd like to think that this is an April Fool's joke a few days early, but then again, we are talking about the Agency of Joan Claybrook...
I just bought a high end TomTom yesterday at a yard sale for $15, almost like new.
I understand the argument the way some of these screens are set up. Mine is just to the left of my rear view mirror on the windshield of my truck. It helps me get into the correct lane. It tells me the name of the street coming up so I don't have to look through a maze of light poles, people, cars, and overgrown shrubbery, and I just love it.
For me, it actually helps make this old fart of a driver a better old fart of a driver. Now, if the screen was down on the console, or dash, I would think that is a bad idea. But for me, it takes a second or two to get a lot of information from the rear view mirror and Tom Tom. Now Wifey will have one on her side of the mirror, as she is always trying to horn in on mine, and she panics when it says "TURN RIGHT AHEAD", but it is two miles before I'm supposed to turn. Anyway, we will put 50-100 miles on the truck in a weekend going from property to property, and these help US immensely.
As with anything, I can see how it would be a problem for others.
BTW, Clark County, NV's new anti hand held phone law is in effect now, with a $250 fine. I still see people yakking on them, a motorcycle police officer being one of them. And I understand in California, you cannot have any GPS device on your windshield. I guess I have to use the weighted sandbag thing that goes on the dash, but really, that's more dangerous to look down at then the other one that's up there where I'm looking anyway.
It's called failure to pay full time and attention to driving, and it's already on the books. They just need to enforce it, and don't know why they didn't when the cells first came out.
Come on people. the author of this article even provided a link to the proposal he has so badly misinterpreted...
formatting link
Principle 4.1: Visual information ***NOT RELATED TO DRIVING*** {emphasis added) that is likely to distract the driver significantly (e.g., video and continuously moving images and automatically scrolling text) should be disabled while the vehicle is in motion or should be only presented in such a way that the driver cannot see it while the vehicle is in motion.
It mentions the concept in several other places, each time making it clear that this DOES NOT apply to navigational aids. It's about things like TV's and DVD players and ads or news feeds on your GPS for instance, but not a moving map (I'm sure someone will try to make that argument, but that's clearly not the intent.)
Buying a "useful GPS" might work for a while, but who knows what will happen when you try to update the maps.
It may be that the map update will not install/work unless the firmware is also updated, bringing the "usefulness" of the GPS down to the current legal level.
For some unknown reason (and I would really like to know why) the only vehicles that I have ever seen that in is Corvettes and Pontiacs which of course are no longer made. I had that feature (not GPS, just speed, etc.) in a Corvette and a Pontiac Grand Prix and they work great!
I owned a GPS for a while. I paid some pretty big bucks to buy the piece of shit. I think I got $5 when I sold it at our rummage sale, but I was glad to be rid of the annoying thing. I've been driving since the late 60's and always used a map with few problems, other than in constructions zones. Sure I'd get confused and lost sometimes, but who hasn't. I thought that GPS would save me those 3 or 4 hours per year that I get lost when traveling, and save me $35 a year on wasted gas, thus it would pay itself off after about 4 or 5 years. Boy was I wrong. That f#%^i&* piece of crap was so far off that it was virtually useless. Yea, in a larger city it was helpful, but try to use it in a rural area, and it became worse than useless.
The POS lead me 70 miles the wrong way one of the first times I used it. I was going to a friends wedding in a small rural town. I missed the whole wedding, wasted over 3 hours and $25 worth of gas due to that GPS. That POS took me down the most back roads, where some of them didn't even have gravel on them, and insisted that I take those horrible routes regardless what settings I used. On the way to that wedding, it actually directed me down a cattle path and into someone's cattle pasture, yet still claiming it was an actual road. I finally got out my map, and found I had gone 70 miles the wrong way, and I had to turn around and backtrack the whole way, plus another 30 or so miles to get to my destination.
Add to that the annoying vocal demands of that GPS, which irritated me to no end. The day I got in the car and pulled out of my driveway, and it said "wrong way, turn around when possible", was the day I tossed it in the rummage sale box. I will never own another of those annoying things. I got my road atlas and state maps. That's all I need. If I buy a car with a built in GPS, I'll cut the power wire to the damn thing.
By the way, to eliminate all car accidents, it's not a matter of removing car electronics, just remove the engine. That will guarantee no more crashes, not to mention saving a fortune in gas costs.
Mine just guided my low-clearance wheelchair van through a huge truck park (to save about a 100' in normal road travel) with huge, truck-sized speed bumps arrayed along along the roadway as far as the eye could see. Fortunately, I stopped and since I generally knew where I was, backed up and listened to it whine about deviating from the bottom-out alleyway route until I got to the next junction point.
I would have liked the option to answer the unit's "You're speeding" with a "STFU for X minutes." What a nag. My first unit took me to the middle of a cornfield instead of the medical park I was looking for. Their best use seems to be getting you home when you're lost. They "know" where home is (and so do you) so even if the maps aren't very detailed for your area, it will at least keep you pointed towards home. I'd sell mine, too, if it weren't for that feature.
I've read that all the gains made in taking drunk drivers off the road in the last 50 years has been quickly undone by the new "driving drunk" - texting while driving. I see it so often it spooks me. In S. Korea, I think, out of work people are paid a bounty to catch miscreants like texting drivers on film.
You're doomed. In but a few years, GPS devices will be so ubiquitous that paper maps will no longer be printed. You'll be left with hideously out-of-date artifacts that encourage you to travel on roads that no longer exist (think Apian Way).
When that happens, I guess you COULD rely on Google Earth to plot your path...
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.