Twittering on the move ‘could put lives at risk’
p2pnet news view | Mobiles:- A major US road safety group is worried Tweeting could cause serious traffic accidents.
During his keynote address at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, Ford boss Alan Mulally said the company will produce vehicles able to read Twitter out loud to owners as they drive.
But, “US Road safety group the AAA warned that the new technology could put lives at risk,” says the Telegraph.
“The more things that are going on in a vehicle, the more things can distract a driver,” it has a spokeswoman saying. “You only have so much attention to give, and we really want everyone to keep their attention on the roadway for safety reasons.”
But Doug VanDagens, Ford global director of connected services, has dismissed the concerns.
People “currently read Twitter feeds while they are driving anyway, and the new system would increase road safety by enabling motorists to keep both hands on the wheel,” the story quotes him as stating.
“We take what people do – they talk on the phone, they fumble with mp3 players, they look at maps. We take these activities and make them safer.”
Meanwhile, “The tweeter function is part of Ford’s plan to connect cars to the internet,” says the Telegraph, adding:
“Ford said drivers will also be able to stream music live from Panadora, a website similar to Last.fm. The technology, developed in partnership with Microsoft, works by connecting an on-board computer to a mobile phone with 3G internet browsing capabilities.”
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Telegraph – CES 2010: Ford unveils Tweeting car, January 8, 2010
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January 8th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
“People currently read Twitter feeds while they are driving anyway…”
Spoken as if doing so is not the concern in the first place.
This is the root of the problem.
Instead of doing everything they can to discourage the use of all the distractive devices, they embrace the marketing value of catering this trend of stupidity, while the idea of being “safer” is simply a red herring that acts to sanction what they’re doing.
As mentioned, the more of these things you give your attention to, the less of your attention is left to concentrate on the road. It won’t matter in the end if all these toys are built-in to the dashboard, hands-free, and voice-activated – drivers will still be diverting too much of their available attention away from driving.
I announce the following to Ford and any other car company in advance…
Should anyone ever strike me or a family member with their vehicle as a direct result of being too engaged with their on-board social network, I will not only be suing the driver, but also bringing as much public attention to what happened as possible, and suing your company for facilitating and enabling the accident. Because, the fact of the matter would be, if you didn’t install it, the driver would have been subject to the “no handheld devices” laws currently in place where I am, and being introduced everywhere – this would have greatly increased the chance that the driver would have been confined to paying attention in the first place.
And, I don’t confine this view to just the car makers who want to build it in. I would include the makers of any retrofitting hardware meant to “convert” existing handhelds to hands-free, as they are guilty of the same facilitation.
Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Well, it should be.
We have nothing but proof that people have no business operating these devices while driving and that they consume way too much driver attention, whether hands-free or not. Building them in doesn’t really make them much safer, and the more of these devices we build in, the more it adds up.
It’s time to start removing them from the driver equation, not adding them!
January 8th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
As stupid as I think this idea is, I don’t see how it would be much more distracting than listening to the radio while driving. The major problem with cell phone use while driving is that it requires you to be actively engaged in conversation, resulting in the driver diverting much-needed attention away from the road, even if both hands are free. And if he/she happens to be using a bluetooth headset, it impairs his/her perriferral (sp?) senses, and his/her ability to sense other drivers and obstacles as easily.
However, a device that automatically reads twitter feeds, blogs, etc wouldn’t be much different from listening to a news report, as motorists have been doing for years, and to the best of my knowledge, there is no correlation between listening to the stereo while driving and traffic accidents; unless of course, the motorist:
1) Plays the volume so loudly that he/she can’t hear street noises, car horns, sirens, etc.
2) Fumbles with the dial
3) Calls into a radio talk show while driving, which is a separate issue altogether
January 8th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I agree with RW. There is no function for outgoing tweets so it’s no more distracting than a radio.
January 8th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
The concept of simply “reading out” the tweets does have that radio “flavour”. The trouble with social networking zealots is, they won’t be content to just *listen* to tweets. They’ll still be grabbing their cellphones in order to add their own tweets, or spread the word about something they’ve just “heard”.
…And, they’ll still be driving when they do.