US may disable all in-car mobile phones

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/17/mobile_phone_shutoff_in_cars/

US may disable all in-car mobile phones
Transportation boss: 'It will be done'

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco • Get more from this author
Posted in Mobile, 17th November 2010 22:46 GMT

The US government may require cars to include scrambling tech that  
would disable mobile-phone use by drivers, and perhaps passengers.
"I think it will be done," US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood  
said on Wednesday morning, according to The Daily Caller. "I think the  
technology is there and I think you're going to see the technology  
become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones."

LaHood is on a self-described "rampage" against distracted driving,  
and if making it impossible to use a mobile phone while in a car can  
save lives, he's all for it — although, according to TDC, LaHood also  
emphasized the role of "personal responsibility."

In a Tuesday blog post announcing an online video series, "Faces of  
Distracted Driving", which presents first-person accounts of  
distracted-driving tragedies, LaHood noted that "Just last year,  
nearly 5,500 people were killed and 500,000 more were injured in  
distracted driving-related crashes.

"These lives, and too many others like them, were cut short — not  
because of malice, but because of carelessness," he added.

The problem is that the average driver doesn't think that he or she is  
an average driver: nearly two-thirds of drivers think of themselves as  
safer and more skillful than a driver of median safety or skills — a  
statistical impossibility, of course.

When faced with the prospect of automotive mobile phones being  
disabled, we'd be willing to bet that most drivers, suffused with  
confidence in their own skills, will think in terms of personal  
inconvenience and a restriction on personal freedom.

Perhaps it might be better to think of the guy texting in the lane to  
your left, or the gal yelling at her ex on her iPhone in the lane to  
your right, and think not of your own inconvenience, but of some  
distracted dolt killing you.

Remember one unassailable statistic, as explained by the late, great  
George Carlin: "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and  
then realize half of them are even stupider!"

LaHood may be right. Disabling mobile phones in cars should not be  
looked at as a way of protecting you from yourself, but instead as a  
way of protecting you from the stupid. ®
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