Mixing California's New Driving Law and Technology: A Recipe for Disaster
One of 2010’s new California driving laws relates to television and broadcast signals. Known as California Assembly Bill 62, this law allows you to drive with a television or video monitor as long as the equipment prevents the driver from watching the screen while operating the car in “a safe and reasonable manner”.
However, automakers and high-tech companies are about to introduce their newest developments…like 10-inch screens above the gearshift showing high-definition videos, 3-D maps, and Web pages directly to the driver. These “infotainment systems” will hit the market this year and are expected to be “standard” features before long.
So how will California’s new law jive with this new technology? In all honesty, probably in a slew of tickets and an increase in accidents. As people crave technology…and ignore laws such as driving while holding a cell phone or “driving while texting”…public safety is frequently compromised.
Even though some of these new devices claim to “lock” while the cars are moving, the manufacturers admit they rely on drivers to use their good judgment.
And perhaps even crazier than all of this is the fact that politicians and lobbyists such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving continue to spend incredible amounts of money fighting drinking and driving laws…despite the fact that our society’s addiction to convenient technology is responsible for far more accidents and fatalities than DUIs.
If MADD changed its name to “mothers against distracted driving” perhaps we might get somewhere…
