Auto Safety Regulators Seek a Driver Mode to Block Apps | Hacker News Reader

Auto Safety Regulators Seek a Driver Mode to Block Apps

mobile.nytimes.com

I feel like something which is missing from this entire conversation is the idea of building user interfaces which are easier to use while driving. It feels like we are stuck in an era when abstinence was the only teen pregnancy solution which was politically safe to discuss.

A simple example would be a music player where the UI is a full screen block of solid color which recognizes swipe guestures to control playback. There's no reason to look at the phone because there's nothing to look at.

A bit more controversial would be Apple automatically dialing up the accessibility font size boost if the phone is moving faster than 10 mph. We may not be able to prevent people from using their phones while driving, but we can reduce the amount of time required to interact with their phone's UI by using easier-to-acquire font sizes and putting less text on the screen.

Is the issue really with how people interface with applications, or rather that interacting with applications takes focus away from the road?

A person can be looking at the road with their eyes but not focusing on it (being prepared to respond) at the same time.

What makes you think that it's possible for people to drive and use their phone at the same time at all? Driver distraction is the number one cause of accidents, and when you're driving at 60 mph, even looking away for a second is enough to cause an accident.

Would you be comfortable with a bus driver ever using their phone on the job while driving? Your taxi driver?

> font size boost if the phone is moving faster than 10 mph

I'm sure people using public transit would be absolutely thrilled!

What if you are just a passenger in the car? How will they determine this?

If the phone is connected to a car by Bluetooth or USB, assume it's the driver's. If you get it wrong, it's just a minor inconvenience (unplug if you really need to use those features).

Doesn't that just encourage drivers that want to use their phone while driving to not tether their phone to their car's bluetooth?

My partner and I will trade off who drives, but mine is always the one on Bluetooth. This would make it super annoying for me to navigate to places as a passenger, and I'd have to use her phone, which then shows the defects in the system.

This would be a disaster for me. Whenever my wife and I are traveling in the US she is the driver and I am the navigator. My phone will be connected and I have to "translate"/enhance Waze directions for her and take care of the music. So none of that would be possible anymore. Would be the same BS as some cars that won't allow me to pair my phone while my wife is driving. I guess we would just have to use the phone speakers then.

You shouldn't have to stop charging your phone to be able to use it in the car, especially when GPS sucks battery something fierce.

A good question. From the article, one of the things the guidelines call for is that manufacturers "develop technology to identify when the devices are being used by a driver while driving. That would ensure the limits are placed on drivers and not other vehicle occupants."

I bet that if the handset manufacturers were to work with the car manufacturers, they could pretty easily locate the phone to a foot or so with minimal battery impact.

So not only will people still use apps while driving, now they'll do it while reaching their arm way out over the passenger seat.

That's not a big change. Don't you already reach way down below the windows so other drivers and police can't see you are using your phone?

This is actually very possible you'd be surprised. Find a keyless car system that also lets you start it such as in the Mitsubishi Evo X and test the range around doors and within the driver seat etc that it lets you start the car. Surprisingly accurate.

Key just outside the drivers door won't start and the boot won't open if it's basically where the tail light is etc. and that's 10 year old tech.

What about the passenger seat though? My EE/physics is rusty, but inside vs outside of a giant metal cage might be easier than slightly to the right but still inside.

Really? Deploy location technology inside a car just to enforce a "driver mode"? A market that consistently rejects tech to enforce speed limits isn't going to accept technology to limit app use in cars. All it will take is one story of someone trapped inside a crashed/stuck car being unable to call for help, or unable to text for help, and nobody will dare to so disable phones.

I cannot wait to see that tech also be deployed to enforce "airplane mode 2.0" so a voice can break in to my music to inform me about the latest skymall deals.

That's overly hyperbolic. Nobody is saying the phone should be completely disabled, just that they should design things so you need to interact with them less. Voice control is a fantastic tool here IMO.

But also, would it be that crazy for them to disable these restrictions in the case of an accident? Like how current cars unlock doors, shut off the engine, and put on flashers in the case of an accident now.

Ah, so now we have location within the car, and accident detection. And we would need to detect accidents nearby so that drivers can call 9/11 without getting out their vehicles. This is too many layers of tech simply to stop people from doing something they already know is wrong. Spend all those development cycles on direct anti-drunk, anti-speeding and anti-crash tech.

It's also not all that hyperbolic. Similar tech has been deployed with GPS. During the early days of handhelds many shutdown at high ground speeds as to prevent them being used to guide aircraft. I forget what the speed was (200mph?) but it was well below the arms limitations (mach 2+ and/or 60,000feet).

Again, it's not like the phone will just shut down and not allow you to do anything, but will most likely have a "car UI" that is limited. The people coming up with these things tend to give them more than a few seconds of thought.

And how many times have you been affected by the GPS thing?

Perhaps they could also call for the manufacturers to "develop technology" to give every driver a pony, while they're at it. It's kind of infuriating to hear from someone who thinks you can just say "develop technology" and then anything will happen.

You seem to be assuming that the NHTSA has no idea how feasible such technology is, and so may be asking for something that is very hard or even impossible.

That's a quite questionable assumption. They almost certainly talked to automobile and smartphone industry experts while developing these guidelines, and know that there are several fairly easy ways to do what they are asking for.

Random brainstorm: Disable every phone in motion, the only way to enable it is to pair with the car. If everyone has to register with a single database and car manufactures have control over it then the car can detect if the person paired with Bluetooth is allowed to be on their phone or not. This wouldn't work if driver wanted the passenger to use their phone. Just thinking out loud, seeing as this is a idea I don't like

Then I can't use phone on the bus or the train...

Every other passenger will be happy tho'.

Easiest thing would be to just use auto mode when connected to a car dashboard or car bt speaker and don't allow exit while traveling at high speed.

Many cars have seat sensors - so disable the phone if there is only the driver's seat occupied

And watch as MPG drops when people start carrying 100 pounds of whatever in the passenger seat.

My car's sensor will trigger on a semi-decent sized watermelon. Drives me fucking insane - it's a Volvo so it really explodes when it triggers when going fast...

It's like somebody just fired a missile at you -.-

easiest is probably to install a camera in the car which films the driver and alerts the authorities when you are using the cell.

yeah because fuck privacy amiright guys? /s

smart people sure are stupid

Make you perform a challenge that's possible with two hands but impossible with one.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aMXEOAvfb4

What happens when people try to do this while driving with their knees?

Or, people who don't have two hands?

Man without arms denied loan because he can't provide finger prints

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38077013/man-without-a...

If this did pass I can imagine the number of rooted smart phones would skyrocket. There has never really been a compelling reason to root an iPhone, but I bet for a lot of people this would be it.

Or, as another comment awesomely suggests, we'll have drive-safe modes that apps can support, boosting both the ergonomy (it's annoying on an iPad that the large screen only displays a tiny 24px icon to switch tracks) and the driving safety.

It's all because we, app developers, haven't made things great yet, but sure it's a strong incentive for Apple to up their game.

I hope they do this. I would love to laugh while the carriers never sell another phone and everybody else installs Cyanogen.

Toyota had to remove a system diagnostic feature that would disable the "can't adjust nav system while driving" misfeature.

I can just imagine the fuss if you forced someone under 35 to actually not be able to use their phone for 60 seconds.

I wish Toyota would release an update for older vehicles. Our Prius V won't let you adjust the navigation destination or even reconnect bluetooth devices while in gear (even with a passenger!). This means that if the bluetooth connection dies, it won't reconnect until you pull over. Huge pain in the butt.

Everything this article suggests sounds like a disaster. I'm sure they'll implement it with low range NFC around the driver, but it will still cause massive headaches for other occupants and won't even accomplish what it is meant to (i.e. people willing to break the law now will simply bypass it, and everyone else will be inconvenienced).

In Japan, dealers install a kill switch for the navi blocker and wink at you when they deliver the car. Everyone drives with live tv on the dash in full view of the driver and fully interactive touch screen navi.

Switch to self driving cars, problem solved.

This is my stance. Texting (and apps) while driving is a huge issue, but so is road rage, DUIs, forgetting to check the bike lane when turning, loud music that makes it impossible to hear ambulances approaching, massive A pillars in newer cars that save the passengers in a wreck but make it impossible to see pedestrians entering a crosswalk when taking a left, people being dicks and running lights because they're more important than you, and the general fact that humans get distracted and can never focus on all directions at once. I appreciate the regulators trying to solve a major piece of the puzzle, but honestly, if we want to reduce the toll that automobiles are pushing on society, we need to focus on a world where very few humans are driving. Some of that is self driving cars, some of that is better rapid transit infra (and two and two go together).

> Apple iPhones and other hand-held devices have long had an airplane mode that shuts off wireless communications to prevent interference with the vast electronics systems that control modern aircraft.

This is such hogwash -- if there was the remotest possibility of phones etc interfering with onboard instruments of an aircraft, you can bet they'd strip all your electronics off your person at security and stash them in a lead-lined bin in the cargo hold for the journey.

It's amazing people just believe what they're told..

Serious question, in the event that we don't have fatalities from auto accidents, where will the organ donations come from? Will it be a good push for stem cell technology?

Interesting question, though I'd want to know what the breakdown for organ sourcing is before I consider what the impact would be.

i would assume that it would be a majority of the donations, i cant think of other ways people die where their organs could still be utilized? (drug OD // old age // etc)

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised that it's a major source as well.

Looks like drug overdose is a significant (and unfortunately increasing) source:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/14/49779944...

Looks like suicide is significant as well, though I'm not sure how to interpret this section of Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation#Suicide

Crikey. What a morbid subject. :/

I would think that organs that are harvested from OD victims would not be "good" because of the harm that the drugs can cause the organs?

Perhaps its organs that were not effected // deemed usable.

From the NPR article:

Dr. Jay Fishman, associate director of [Boston's Mass General] transplant center, says an organ from someone who used drugs is not necessarily risky and may even be healthier than other options.

"You have to remember that as awful as this outbreak is, these are younger people who are dying, often with needles in their arms, and many of them were first-time drug users," Fishman says. "They weren't all addicts."

We can make organ donation an opt-out checkbox.

But the question is when would they donate their organs? (Making the assumption that most organ donations come from people in car accidents).

i dont see why you would not want to be an organ donor, body is just a rental anyway?

I think the parents point is that we have seen in some places (Netherlands?) that a dramatic increase in organ donors happened when they switched from opt-in to opt-out.

In Portugal we have opt-out, while here in Germany it is opt-in, I never understood the decision, exactly because of what you mention.

Religious beliefs, cryonics. (But then I repeat myself...)

You answered your own question. By the time we see a serious drop in auto fatalities because of mass adoption of Autonomous vehicles, Id imagine we'll be able to 3D print organs that wont encounter rejection. Alternatively, you could always take a medical holiday to China.

This has already happened there has been a huge decline in available donor organs due to reduced road fatalities, especially the kind that still leave organs viable for harvesting.

Think of it in reverse. The survivor of the accident that doesn't happen donates their organs to themself. Organ donation is just one means to increase survivorship, but there are other means as well.

It's already been that way since safety belts became mandatory - the number of organs for available for transplant plummeted.

Perhaps a not so serious answer, but Larry Niven has a number of science fiction stories based on this concept, which is dubbed organlegging [0]. The one that sticks out in my mind is The Jigsaw Man [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organlegging [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jigsaw_Man

The solution to this is simple: one way or another, except for people whose job it is to drive, we should stop having people drive cars, whether that means public transit, more bike lanes, or self-driving cars or something else.

I do think it's possible to approximately locate a driver's phone, though it will likely work relatively imperfectly. But then consider that driving drunk is also a huge hazard, and yet most people don't have breathalyzers required to start their cars (and yes, this technology does already exist)

It'll take some time to get to that point. Is the proposed driving mode a good stop-gap? I think it could well be.

I don't think it's a good stop-gap for me. I wan't to be able to use my own gps app (OSMand), not retarded Google Maps that has less features than bottomfeeeder gps unit you buy at wallmart

But I can concede that people are sure as fuck going to use facebook on those screens if there was a way to do so -.-

Man, I'm so tired of the whole self-driving meme

It's years off in most of the world, while more and more sophisticated infotaiment screens that can distract the drivers are ALREADY on the market

No shit. Every "problems with driving and cars" thread inevitably has a half dozen people who are way too pleased with themselves saying "won't be a problem in just a few years with self-driving cars!" It's almost the dictionary definition of "hand-wave away". BTW, and I hate to digress, but how's that "year of the Linux desktop" going twenty years later?

I've probably got twenty, thirty years at best left before I depart this mortal coil. When my body reaches room temperature, I expect at best self-driving cars will be an expensive novelty. In the meantime, can we go on with solving today's problems with today's, or near-future technologies and quit hand-waving with vaporware?

I was thinking about this the other day.

The Apple patent on IR blocking for concert bvenues, would fit this purpose pretty well.

The Android Auto app on Android smartphones already does this. It has still have some ways to go with other app developers participating, but that could be a model for future.

The further worthless nannying continues. We're on the Autobahn to idiocracy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com