12 ms·

Are they accounting for carpooling/passengers? I drive into work with my wife every morning, and often check my phone en-route while she's driving. This is an

by gbrown 8y ago

Are they accounting for carpooling/passengers? I drive into work with my wife every morning, and often check my phone en-route while she's driving. This is an important problem, but ham fisted solutions which invade privacy are not the answer. We need better regulation of this stuff.

katbyte 8y ago
Or even between driving vs slowly rolling in traffic vs stopped? I never really touch the phone at speed unless but stopped or slowly moving forward at 5kph? I’ll change music or check google maps for a better route ️
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  This is in some ways the worst because it's the speed at which everyone outside your vehicle assumes you're the most attentive and aware of your surroundings. It's the speed at which that kid playing in the street is most likely to "come out of nowhere" and end up under your wheel.
  - katbyte 8y ago
    On a highway? Context is everything.
    - genocidicbunny 8y ago
      I've found that on the highway that someone in an adjacent lane is most likely to make a sudden lane change at very high or very low speeds. So at 5mph, from my experience, you're far more likely to encounter situations where you need to be paying attention than not when you're driving at low speeds on a highway. So yeah, using your phone on the highway, in really any situation unless its park-and-sleep traffic, is kind of a dick move.
mikepurvis 8y ago
We already have regulations. It's not working. I'm perfectly content for a phone to detect via GPS/IMU that it's in a moving vehicle and send up a big angry prompt like "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." I say this as a bike commuter who sees phones being used at stoplights every day, and as a parent of kids who walk to school. But also has a driver who occasionally fiddles with Google Maps on the road and could use the reminder myself.
- gbrown 8y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I bike too. I also have little faith that this sort of system will be implemented effectively and transparently. I also don't think it should be legal in the first place to gather this kind of data without informed consent (no, TOS doesn't count). There's so much going on in industry that an IRB wouldn't touch, and that's where I think we need more regulation. (I also think we need change-lanes-to-pass bills, better bike infrastructure, more regulation on car infotainment systems, and GOOD approaches to punishing and preventing distracted driving).
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    The OP's dialog box was: "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." Clicking OK on that dialog box sounds like informed consent to me.
    - gbrown 8y ago
      First, it's not clear to me that this is what is being proposed - instead, it sounds like the companies involved get their surveillance tech rolled into other apps like adware. Second, even if enrollment in the program was done more carefully (people shouldn't find out suddenly and in unfamiliar ways about intrusive technology), you'd REALLY want to study this to make sure that the jarring warning doesn't cause even more accidents. I'm not against using technology to improve public safety, but I'm against half-assed ideas which would never hold up under reasonable peer or institutional review without a lot more careful consideration of safety and privacy.
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
I assume they can tell who the "driver" is by checking who is using their navigation apps. Although I know this would hurt some really nice passengers who like to set up the driving directions for their partners.
- 3JPLW 8y ago
  That definitely won't work — my wife is in charge of my phone while I drive. This includes texting, GPS, and more. Even if you knew I was the one driving, just looking to see that my phone was in use wouldn't be accurate.
  - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
    That's a good point. There are so many possible situations where a phone could be "safely" in use while the car is in motion, it would be really hard to use this information against the driver in almost any situation.
    - loeg 8y ago
      In fact, it seems the most likely explanation for Zendrive finding that the heaviest users of phones while in motion rated themselves as extremely safe — they just have bad data about who is actually driving.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    I imagine it would be up to you to prove that in court if you want your insurance to pay out.
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      like all great laws, it would hit the people trying to do the responsible thing hardest. why is it even close to acceptable than a man and his wife doing exactly the right thing should have to fight it in court to get their insurance payout?
bootlooped 8y ago
My insurance company had me install their app to rate my driving for a couple of weeks. I asked them how they knew I was the one driving the car, they basically said "we can tell with technology and science". This was an unsatisfactory answer to me, because I really don't see how they can tell the difference between when my phone is in my pocket when I'm driving, and when my phone is in my pocket and I'm the passenger. If they can't tell whether you are the drive or the passenger, it seems like their data on distracted driving would be extremely tainted.
- rileymat2 8y ago
  It may not matter if it is tainted or not, if it gives them an advantage in pricing insurance policies on average. Knowing that you do or do not not fiddle with your phone on the road too much as a passenger or driver might be enough of a signal.
- steve19 8y ago
  Chances are the data is being fed into a black-box neural network and they don't have damned idea why the black box says your driving is good or bad. "we can tell with technology and science" ie. "magic".
- m463 8y ago
  I would imagine bluetooth would most likely be connected if you're the driver. If they can get the bluetooth id of the car you're paired with, maybe they could say "this is the common car driven". And if they had location information, they might be able to match it offline to other data, like a license plate as you drove past a license plate reader. and if they don't have any of that, maybe I should shut up because now they have ideas.
  - gthtjtkt 8y ago
    > I would imagine bluetooth would most likely be connected if you're the driver. I would think the opposite. When I'm the passenger, I connect to Bluetooth so I can control the music and navigation. It makes no sense for the driver to do that.
- 8y ago

by gbrown 8y ago

katbyte 8y ago

Or even between driving vs slowly rolling in traffic vs stopped? I never really touch the phone at speed unless but stopped or slowly moving forward at 5kph? I’ll change music or check google maps for a better route ️

mikepurvis 8y ago
This is in some ways the worst because it's the speed at which everyone outside your vehicle assumes you're the most attentive and aware of your surroundings. It's the speed at which that kid playing in the street is most likely to "come out of nowhere" and end up under your wheel.
- katbyte 8y ago
  On a highway? Context is everything.
  - genocidicbunny 8y ago
    I've found that on the highway that someone in an adjacent lane is most likely to make a sudden lane change at very high or very low speeds. So at 5mph, from my experience, you're far more likely to encounter situations where you need to be paying attention than not when you're driving at low speeds on a highway. So yeah, using your phone on the highway, in really any situation unless its park-and-sleep traffic, is kind of a dick move.

mikepurvis 8y ago

We already have regulations. It's not working. I'm perfectly content for a phone to detect via GPS/IMU that it's in a moving vehicle and send up a big angry prompt like "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." I say this as a bike commuter who sees phones being used at stoplights every day, and as a parent of kids who walk to school. But also has a driver who occasionally fiddles with Google Maps on the road and could use the reminder myself.

gbrown 8y ago
Don't get me wrong, I bike too. I also have little faith that this sort of system will be implemented effectively and transparently. I also don't think it should be legal in the first place to gather this kind of data without informed consent (no, TOS doesn't count). There's so much going on in industry that an IRB wouldn't touch, and that's where I think we need more regulation. (I also think we need change-lanes-to-pass bills, better bike infrastructure, more regulation on car infotainment systems, and GOOD approaches to punishing and preventing distracted driving).
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  The OP's dialog box was: "Please confirm that you are a passenger and not driving this vehicle. Phone interactions are being logged and will be available to law enforcement if a collision occurs." Clicking OK on that dialog box sounds like informed consent to me.
  - gbrown 8y ago
    First, it's not clear to me that this is what is being proposed - instead, it sounds like the companies involved get their surveillance tech rolled into other apps like adware. Second, even if enrollment in the program was done more carefully (people shouldn't find out suddenly and in unfamiliar ways about intrusive technology), you'd REALLY want to study this to make sure that the jarring warning doesn't cause even more accidents. I'm not against using technology to improve public safety, but I'm against half-assed ideas which would never hold up under reasonable peer or institutional review without a lot more careful consideration of safety and privacy.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago

I assume they can tell who the "driver" is by checking who is using their navigation apps. Although I know this would hurt some really nice passengers who like to set up the driving directions for their partners.

3JPLW 8y ago
That definitely won't work — my wife is in charge of my phone while I drive. This includes texting, GPS, and more. Even if you knew I was the one driving, just looking to see that my phone was in use wouldn't be accurate.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  That's a good point. There are so many possible situations where a phone could be "safely" in use while the car is in motion, it would be really hard to use this information against the driver in almost any situation.
  - loeg 8y ago
    In fact, it seems the most likely explanation for Zendrive finding that the heaviest users of phones while in motion rated themselves as extremely safe — they just have bad data about who is actually driving.
- onion2k 8y ago
  I imagine it would be up to you to prove that in court if you want your insurance to pay out.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    like all great laws, it would hit the people trying to do the responsible thing hardest. why is it even close to acceptable than a man and his wife doing exactly the right thing should have to fight it in court to get their insurance payout?

bootlooped 8y ago

My insurance company had me install their app to rate my driving for a couple of weeks. I asked them how they knew I was the one driving the car, they basically said "we can tell with technology and science". This was an unsatisfactory answer to me, because I really don't see how they can tell the difference between when my phone is in my pocket when I'm driving, and when my phone is in my pocket and I'm the passenger. If they can't tell whether you are the drive or the passenger, it seems like their data on distracted driving would be extremely tainted.

rileymat2 8y ago
It may not matter if it is tainted or not, if it gives them an advantage in pricing insurance policies on average. Knowing that you do or do not not fiddle with your phone on the road too much as a passenger or driver might be enough of a signal.
steve19 8y ago
Chances are the data is being fed into a black-box neural network and they don't have damned idea why the black box says your driving is good or bad. "we can tell with technology and science" ie. "magic".
m463 8y ago
I would imagine bluetooth would most likely be connected if you're the driver. If they can get the bluetooth id of the car you're paired with, maybe they could say "this is the common car driven". And if they had location information, they might be able to match it offline to other data, like a license plate as you drove past a license plate reader. and if they don't have any of that, maybe I should shut up because now they have ideas.
- gthtjtkt 8y ago
  > I would imagine bluetooth would most likely be connected if you're the driver. I would think the opposite. When I'm the passenger, I connect to Bluetooth so I can control the music and navigation. It makes no sense for the driver to do that.
8y ago