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Comment by jstanek | Hacker News Reader

It's odd that they promote their product by saying that phone use while driving is unsafe. I fail to see who this is significantly safer than using a phone, since to use the HUD one needs to necessarily remove their attention and focus from the road and redirect it to a small point much closer to their face. Granted, it is probably at least a little better than using a phone, but I'd be _very_ hesitant to say that it's safe.

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There are two options on the extremes

1. Keep the HUD in focus and the road out of focus. Your eyes are still seeing a lot of road information that doesn't necessarily need the high fidelity. This is relatively safer than looking away entirely. The human brain can do a lot with scarce information.

2. Keep the road in focus and the HUD out of focus. For things like navigation this will still work fairly well since all you usually need for the navigation is the shape of the road, the direction you'll need to turn in, and how many blocks (roughly) you have until the destination. This is relatively safer than looking away at your phone or gps from time to time, or even looking around for the street names.

Realistically, people will switch between the two extremes.

>It's odd that they promote their product by saying that phone use while driving is unsafe. I fail to see who this is significantly safer than using a phone, since to use the HUD one needs to necessarily remove their attention and focus from the road and redirect it to a small point much closer to their face.

The thing is, jet fighter pilots use HUDs. If those work for them, I'm pretty sure it's ok for a car too.

Plus the road is quite boring site most of the time. You are not always in fast traffic or streets full of pedestrians. If you leave in Nevada, close to Highway-50 even more so, but I digress.

Jet fighter pilots are extremely focused at all times and use a HUD to be able to increase focus, not the opposite.

I can't believe I have to say this but JET FIGHTER PILOTS DO NOT USE HUDS TO TWEET.

This must be a joke...have you met the average driver? Compared to fighter pilots, who are the best of the best and have years of specialized training plus millions of dollars of military-grade hardware devoted to giving them situational awareness of all possible threats?

Jet fighters pilot are (amongst other things) selected on their multitasking skills. Plus they have extensive training regarding concentration, reaction time and so on. You cannot really compare them to the average driver.

Replying to all the comments above here:

Yeah, and average drivers don't face even 1/10 of the speeds and situations a jet fighter pilot faces, including the G's.

Things I didn't say but people still replied as I said them: a) that jet fighters and car drivers have the same skills, b) that jet fighters tweet.

My comment was plain and simple. To rephrase: if HUDs work in such quick-response situations, in a vehicle with 100 times the complexity of your average car, 10 times the speed, and missiles against you, then sure the "average driver" can look at a HUD to see a new tweet, if he doesn't have to de-focus from the road with this technology.

> The thing is, jet fighter pilots use HUDs. If those work for them, I'm pretty sure it's ok for a car too.

I really hope you're being sarcastic and just forgot about Poe's law here.

> It's odd that they promote their product by saying that phone use while driving is unsafe.

That part of a video is basically a slap in the face. The video says that when you use a phone while driving, bad things happen. What are those bad things? A police car stopping you. What the hell. They definitely should stop you. And take away your driving license. And your car. And maybe your offspring.

Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself. Basically, police stopping you for texting while driving is the least bad possible consequence.

I think they'd do better to pitch it as a replacement for car UI in general. If it's executed well, it could be a safer replacement for behaviors like looking down at the A/C or radio controls.

Did you even read the front page? Just scroll down a tiny bit and read:

"Navdy's transparent Head-Up Display (HUD) projects information as if it's floating six feet in front of you. In the car you already have."

Further down:

"The image is focused into the distance so the road stays in focus while the driver views the information presented by Navdy. The same technology is used in all commercial airplanes so the pilot can keep their eyes on the runway while landing the airplane."

You still need to shift your cognitive, focus. It’s still a distraction, and similarly dangerous [1].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safet...

Ah, I was considering only optical focus. Depending on the situation, shifting cognitive focus may or may not be bad. I tend to get highway hypnosis...I think cognitive focus shifts might help me stay alert, not distract me.

You're still not focused on the road though, that's just not how the human brain works, and insinuating that this device somehow makes texting while driving safe is hugely irresponsible IMO, considering how many thousands of lives are lost every year to distracted driving.

(I also doubt a commercial pilot is using this tech to send tweets to his mom while landing a plane. The "Pilots use this, so it's gotta be safe, right?" line just made me facepalm.)

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