New App Helps to Slow Down Speeders

Tech start-up Zendrive and Verizon developed an app that monitors when drivers are speeding and alerts them to their rule-breaking.

Zendrive is working with Verizon to help its mobile app detect when drivers speed and alert them to how often they break the law. Image: Chris Yarzab

Drivers are reckless and distracted, but soon there’ll be a way to get them to realize that — using the very device that’s distracting them while they’re on the road.

StreetsBlogUSA - continues
(well worth the reading)

 

my guess is, no one would "enable" this feature (ie, not agree to the app watching over you)

 

Well yeah, this is assumed, but just think how many would enable it if there's a good discount from the insurance company? This is just a start. I can see this as something that would have to be installed on habitual offenders phone in cases. Yes the offender could have another phone or even have a few phones, but these things can be worked out. The big things is using the "stick and carrot" approach on offenses and discounts.

The thing is good drivers can be rewarded and bad drivers can get punished. If done right, would be really hard and a pain to get over it.

 

Distracted driving hasn't proven to be a "thing" to the extent that insurance companies like the one I do product design for thought it might. Yeah people do get distracted and crash, and it's really heartbreaking, and is also real hard to even tell if the phone was active or not. But, frequency hasn't increased much so we infer that the same people would have otherwise done some other risky thing and crashed anyway. Things like obsessive radio changing, arguing with passengers, paying too much attention to podcasts, or cramming fries in while driving. To put it more bluntly, if you're a bad driver already, you're a bad risk no matter if you glance at your phone or not.

 

This is wild.

Distracted driving is and will always be super dangerous.

 

He's not saying it's not dangerous. He's saying the rate hasn't increased significantly since the near universal adoption of cell phones. Distracted driving is dangerous regardless of the cause.

 

Yeah exactly. Insurance companies would very much like people to put down their cell phones and pay attention, both to avoid losses and out of general compassion for life and safety. But we can't see in the data that phone adoption has driven up losses, and we can't figure out a way to get people to put down their phones (and not pick up something else).

My company has tried app gamification to reduce phone use while moving. Know how many people were interested in getting the app? Basically nobody.

Apple's approach of doing it at the OS level (not an app) has slightly more promise.

 

Texting requires a lot more mental attention and eyes away from the road than changing a radio station. You can see these people driving 45 on a highway and/or veering out of lane- when you pass them you look over and see they're not paying attention to driving.

Nobody would volunteer to use this app but parents might make it mandatory.

 

I can see where there would be some app that documents your driving. It would be much like a black box. If marketed correct, many good drivers would be signed up with this, if there's some good chunk of savings involved. Seeing that Verizon is involved in the original article, looks like there's something here. Obvious that this is still a very early stage. I can also see this being used for bad drivers that are being busted. The courts will say "you can't get on the road unless you are monitored. Also if you get a low score, you will have your licence suspended."

From my driving experience, which started before cellphones even existed. Back in the day, the only time you heard of a driver in their 20s getting into a horrible crash is cause they were doing silly stuff like racing. Now it's just going down a road and drifting out of lane. With a black box, we would have a pretty good idea what happened.

 

Distracted driving is accepted as proven by science here in BC. - our insurance corporation will be watching this closely.
Using a cell phone while driving (voice control/Bluetooth earpiece/hands free excepted) is a distracted driving charge if caught. (they do cell phone traps, like speed traps on the road side at stop lights)

What is the punishment for distracted driving? --

The fine for a distracted driving ticket is $368, along with four driver penalty points that will be applied to the driver's record.
First-time violators must pay an extra Insurance Corporation of B.C. penalty fee of $210 for a total of $578.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ling-1.5066810

 

That's not a bad start, but hopefully CA sees it as a work in progress. Really to get a good start with this distracted driving via cellphone, is to be able for authorities to access the violator's cellphone records, the last ~5 mins before a collision. Sure the owner could have their phones encrypted, but I'm pretty sure it can be engineered to release 5 mins of data and then the phone gets re-encrypted. The end result is to see who was at fault and what caused it. Sure the owner could have done something embarrassing or illegal in that 5 mins, but I guess they shouldn't have cause a crash. Without having this 5 minutes of the "black box", authorities' hands are tied and things are just going to get worst.

I doubt that CA has anything like this, do they?

(CA = Canada here)

 

Do you really want to give the police more power to seize and search property? Not everything done on a phone is a voice conversation or text message. To make such a thing useful, it might have to be very intrusive. Was someone reading a webpage? Were they listening to a song on Youtube? Were they watching a movie or scrolling through their gallery? Maybe Pokemon Go. You almost need the touchscreen equivalent of a keystroke logger.

Do you want police to automatically search phones of people involved in crashes, or do you think a warrant should be needed based on evidence, like a witness saw them with phone in hand prior to the crash? The first one seems blatantly unconstitutional, we can't even automatically get breath or blood samples for alcohol, we have to develop probable cause to arrest for DUI first. Even then, I have to write a search warrant for blood if they refuse to blow into the machine. The second might take weeks, most detective sections are overworked, like each guy has fifteen or twenty cases open at a time.

Maybe, since a lot of people don't trust police lately, it could be handled by the state department of transportation instead? Of course, that would probably mean you lose your phone for six months of bureaucratic shuffle. That's not guaranteed, but considering the sometimes years long backlog of sexual assault evidence kits and drug seizures waiting for tests before cases can proceed, I wouldn't rule it out.

 

Hello hasdrubal,

The way I envision the scenario is that info is surrenders voluntarily. I guess it can be argued that you need to surrender your privacy to get results, but if you are an innocent party in this scenario, it's the price you got to pay. Yes you can pursue your innocence without giving up info, but good luck with that one. On the other hand, things could be pretty well documented if are surrendering info. If both parties surrender info, a pretty solid picture can be put together, I would think. I'm betting that two black boxes would be almost all the info needed. Really I would say that a good picture can be seen with what happened with the last 2 min before our make believe crash here.

And I'm betting that it could easily be given and securely done so, where the owner isn't out of the use of his phone for 6 months. Banking and much, much more stuff can be done on our phones today, having this "black box" can be resolved to peoples' satisfaction and the satisfaction of the court system. Yes you got issues that need to be iron out, but really I think it's very do-able. Lot easier than AI for cars!

 

I like that you're thinking outside the box and trying to come up with solutions for real world problems, but part of the foundation of the entire American legal system is that people are considered innocent until proven guilty. If you get rid of that, you open the door to many potential abuses. I'm going to paste in part of the Bill of Rights here, since the people who wrote them were far wiser than I am, and had just fought a war against a tyrannical government.


The Fourth Amendment says the government can't just search through your possessions except with a warrant, there are exceptions, but limited- the courts are saying in recent years that in many cases any evidence obtained by mere consent of the accused must be thrown out because people who are in custody or have reason to think they are under duress are not capable of giving informed, reasoned consent.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."


The Fifth Amendment says people can't be forced to testify against themselves. That might be a bigger can of worms to open than the Fourth, if the police could punish people for not confessing. Because that's really where it ends up- even if it's a fine and not prison, it's still incompatible with liberty.

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."


I'm not trying to say your ideas will inevitably lead to tyranny, and I don't think that's your goal. Just remember that the reason the principles of liberty and limited government were laid out the way they were was to keep crooked politicians from creating one. A tool created with the best intentions can be used by the next person with the worst results. I'm going to make a guess here, and assume you don't want Trump to have absolute power any more than I did for Obama.

 

Forgot to add that the vast majority of the people I deal with, including polite and educated regular people who haven't committed any apparent crime (like the ones I meet at car crashes) are completely unwilling to let me search their cars or phones or any other aspect of their property. They value their privacy, and consider the inside of their purses, wallets, cars, etc, to be much the same as their homes, off limits to government snooping... and they should. They're Americans.

 

I would think the use of a "black box" here would be something that the owner is willing to give up. For the innocent, there should be a good incentive to give up the info needed, in order to resolve the issue accurately and fairly. Yes there will be times where no one wants to have anything given up. That detail needs to ironed out.

The fifth amendment will still be intact. The party doesn't have to testify against themselves. I would say though that it might look bad if the other party is opening up.

Really I haven't researched this idea all that much, a "black box", but someone must have by now, right? It just seems that it isn't all that difficult to come up with something. I would look at how the original black boxes are handled and kinda use that as a template for some aspects too.