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Comment by Guildpact | Hacker News Reader

Seems like this would be hard to prove, often my girlfriend will be using my phone while I am driving, how would this tell who was using it? I don't think there is a way. This means if the driver was the sole person in the car you could do this, otherwise it would be ambiguous.

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or voice composition, i use software on my phone that came preinstalled to tell it to send a text message to my wife without even looking at it (I've actually used it on my motorcycle through my bluetooth helmet!)

I do the same with Siri. Read & compose texts with both hands on the bars and eyes on the road. I actually prefer it to trying to read something 10:1.

I have the iPhone 6+ in a ram mount just in front of the instrument cluster so I could attempt to read it if the screen would consistently respond to my gloved finger.

I really should figure out how to do this.

My phone is typically either in the dedicated compartment in the "Infotainment Center" or in the saddlebags. I almost always have my music playing (via Bluetooth) but I can control that (skip songs, adjust volume, etc., via controls on my hand grips). Because my phone is always paired via Bluetooth, I do get the audible alert played through the stereo system when I receive an SMS message -- and the ringtone and notification on my display when I receive a phone call -- but I can't hear or read my messages through it.

After thinking about it for a moment, I don't think Siri would be able to "hear" me, though, regardless of where my phone was (I don't have a Bluetooth earpiece or anything like that and I don't wear a helmet). I'm gonna look into it, though.

Don't many cars with an "Infotainment Center" come today with a cabin microphone so you could pair the phone to them as a headset?

Yes, but many will not pass that mic back to the phone until you are on a "phone call".

Why, i'm not sure, but it's infuriating whenever i get in my Mazda that voice recognition won't work any more (the phone ignores it's mic because it's connected to bluetooth that identifies as being able to handle that, and the car won't send that info back to the phone).

I was referring to when I'm on my motorcycle, sorry.

Yep. But guess what? The police can and probably still will write you a ticket for it even though the evidence is shaky at best. Why? Because you'll still have to appear in court to fight it if you wish to fight it and they are banking that you will just pay the fine to make it go away. How many people can take a few days off of work to go to court to fight a ticket without employment repercussions? The State is indirectly using Business (employers) to enslave and indebt the population.

Constitutional rights shouldn't depend on the number of people in the car.

You have no constitutional right to drive. That's what this law is based on. You do have a constitutional right to free travel, so some people believe that gives you a constitutional right to drive, but that hasn't held up.

I think he was alluding to the constitutional right to privacy, which is something we do have.

The number of people in the car (i.e. whether another passenger could have been using the phone) shouldn't affect whether you have the right to the privacy of your communications and personal data on your phone.

Hmm. Given how walking (or even biking) on the side of highways is discouraged (or ticketed), and public and private land is fenced off around these major roads, how does the right to free travel hold up? Or do they consider paid transportation like buses to be sufficient?

If I want to go east, I have to take the highway. There are no other roads through the mountains for a good 50 miles north of my current location.

Where are you talking about? In the US, you would only get bothered for walking on a limited access freeway (in some areas even those are open to pedestrians).

There's even an effort to sign post a national route system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bicycle_Route_Sy...

To me the bigger issue is that biking or walking along a busy road is unpleasant.

Its like DWB, in that its technically not illegal to walk along the side of the road, just like its technically not illegal to shake down anyone walking along the side of the road. After all, the police are just investigating a crime report from somewhere within 50 miles and one week where the description of the violator is no more specific than "a man" or whatever.

To say the problem varies a lot geographically is an understatement.

> You have no constitutional right to drive.

This is a corruption of terminology. "Driving" in these discussions means traveling via the public road, which you do have a right to do. Using the public roads for private commerce (the original definition to "driving") is different, but nobody here is talking about that.

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