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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

I mean, I'm all for anything within reason than can prevent DUI, but in my travels, cell phone use is a much, much more pervasive problem that is only poised to get worse. It makes me concerned it's flying under the radar.

I'm not attempting to straw man or anything, but curious if others feel the same way.

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From the article, it seems the type of systems that are being proposed would also help with this issue.

The general idea is that the vehicle will monitor the driver’s performance to determine if the driver is impaired or not. It seems fairly reasonable. We have lane assist “Autopilot” type systems that are relatively close as it is. Basically the computer would see the driver is not doing similar inputs as what it determines is necessary and would flag the driver as impaired no matter what is causing that impairment.

I would guess lane swerving and late braking from cell phone use would be easy to detect.

That tech is nowhere near the reliability needed to lock out vehicle access. My (relatively new) car's lane departure system regularly gets confused by wet roads, construction zones, snow, and other environmental factors. Imagine the hell that would be getting stranded on the side of the road, stuck on hold with your car manufacturer's tech support while in a snowstorm because your car refuses to let you drive.

Imagine the same scenario but you are in the middle of nowhere, with nobody around and your car tells you you are drunk and can't drive...

Maybe a system that detects erratic driving, regardless of the cause -- sleep/drowsiness, alcohol, phone use, shaving, makeup, book reading (I have seen this!) -- can inform the driver to be more careful. That seems to strike a balance between safety and privacy.

You know, I was sitting here thinking on it and came up with eye tracking, but I like your idea way more. You're right, both would drive erratically and probably easily detected by the PCM/CPU.

Don’t forget talking to passengers, playing with a touchscreen, looking sideways at accidents, clipping toenails, looking back at kids, playing with gps, eating, drinking, smoking.

Oh, and call the cop immediately while at it.

Won't work on interstates but if they are crossing solid white lines like bicycle lanes on modern roads they they are either drunk, high, or starring at their smartphone.

Some people seem to even purposely straddle the bicycle lane line as some kind of subconscious auto-guidance while using their smartphone while driving which should be a go-immediately-to-jail offense before they murder someone.

Do we have existing tech that can disable cellphones? I suppose the driver’s seat could be wrapped in a faraday cage. Perhaps drivers could request an exception, with tougher penalties for exempted drivers who get busted using a handheld device while driving.

On iOS, if your device is connected to the car’s Bluetooth, then you can’t use the device unless you’re using it hands-free (despite research showing that hands-free is just as distracting as holding a phone), or unless you’ve disabled this protective feature on your device.

Doesn't everyone disable this the first time they're a passenger in their own car? (e.g. if your spouse is driving)

Personally, I disable it on a per-use basis, and not within Settings.

And actually, my use case for per-use disabling is usually when I'm the driver: I turn on my car and then I pick up my phone to select some music - but I can't because the phone thinks I'm driving even though I'm parked.

But I'm sure most people have it permanently disabled.

Blocking cell phones is legally problematic because it interferes with 911 calls.

I'm sure there are technical strategies to allow true emergency calls without texting, but I feel like there's a lot of ways for that to go haywire with tragic consequences and there's no need to starting playing with that fire just yet.

Arguably that's easier to fix than drink diving too, but maybe that's me...

Looking forward to things like machine assisted breaking as default as the tech matures to help avoid crashes.

I saw research some years ago that estimated that around 25% of drivers are bought in Los Angeles are intoxicated.

Additionally, “pervasive use” is not a measurement of damage.

In contrast, its important to note that intoxication is an objective measure. You can measure someones blood alcohol and know they were intoxicated.

Someone who causes an accident while distracted can just not say they were using their phone and theres no evidence otherwise.

> In contrast, its important to note that intoxication is an objective measure.

is it? BAC itself is an objective measure, and can be measured quite precisely if one cares to calibrate their equipment. but the actual level of impairment varies a lot from one person to another. all we can really say is that, statistically, most people are not good to drive after some cutoff. it's even more difficult with other drugs. a dose of heroin that would put you in the ER might be the bare minimum to stave off withdrawal for an addict.

> Someone who causes an accident while distracted can just not say they were using their phone and theres no evidence otherwise.

depends how much you care to investigate. a text message sent a minute before the crash is fairly incriminating. even if they are just scrolling instagram, there's probably a timestamped log of that request somewhere.

One of my favorite mythbusters episodes actually tested drunk driving. Tory was the only member who performed very well while intoxicated. They showed the results, but avoided the obvious conclusions:

- This was not the first time that Tory drive drunk, and

- Clearly some people can safely drive with a level of intoxication to that is unsafe for others.

(To be clear, I’m not suggesting that driving drunk is safe or sensible on public roads, just bolstering what the parent said: the BAC level for impairment differs between individuals.)

> BAC itself is an objective measure, and can be measured quite precisely if one cares to calibrate their equipment

If by equipment you mean something that analyzes a blood draw, sure. It is my understanding that breathalyzers vary wildly from person to person because the rate at which the lungs pass alcohol from the bloodstream into the air is not consistent, and they necessarily contain a fudge factor that assumes it is.

Fair points. I have no idea what percentage of people driving are drunk.

Anecdotally, I do know what percentage of people who nearly hit me head on each day are looking down into their lap(if not holding the phone in front of their eyes), and it's nearly 100.

I can't edit my comment at this point. But I meant to say, "at night" and not "are bought". duh.

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