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Comment by tylerflick | Hacker News Reader

I hate being cynical, but in LA this ruling means nothing. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone pulled over for a traffic offense.

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You’re not being cynical, just realistic. The later model year Mercedes or BMW the more likely I see some thirty something talking into the bottom of her phone. They don’t have Bluetooth on Mercedes?

All this tells me is that you live in either North Hollywood, Santa Monica, or Glendale.

I'll take that over the eyes in the lap group I see everywhere everyday.

I was fined for using a phone a while back. Fine aside it had a very bad impact on my insurance prices.

They didn't give you a driving school option?

They did. I skipped the fine but the real fine was insurance premium going up.

I know somebody who tried to check their phone on a red light and got pulled over/fined for it, this was ~4 weeks ago.

Edit: This was in Riverside County (~60 miles from LA)

Are tinted windows legal in CA? If your windows are super tinted or you car is lifted - it might be quite difficult to see that someone is using their phone.

Some tint is allowed, but the legal limit is rather low. It needs to let in 70% of the light on the front side windows, and nothing is allowed on the front windshield (bar a strip at the top).

If you’re engaged into a serious accident and your phone history shows that you were texting while driving, this law will get you under a pile of trouble.

I send texts via voice command/dictation all the time. How would this be distinguished?

Because the device records detailed usage information with timestamps such as device locks/unlocks, the screen lighting up and going dark, apps going in and out of focus, and in many cases details of exactly what you were doing in the app.

https://cellebrite.com/en/how-a-suspects-pattern-of-life-ana...

https://cellebrite.com/en/samsung-rubin-digital-forensics-va...

I followed the Murdaugh murder case a while back and that level of evidence was critical

The father killed his family and had a pretty good shot at sowing reasonable doubt until they pulled his sons phone telemetry and it showed the son unlocking his phone and checking socials at a time that conflicted with the dads story.

Phones truly are a surveillance dream. You couldn’t ask for a more invasive tracking device, and people love it. You couldn’t pry a phone away from most people these days

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