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I know software isn't a panacea, but how hard would it be to design the cars so that if you are alone in the car (and therefore obviously the driver), mobile de

I know software isn't a panacea, but how hard would it be to design the cars so that if you are alone in the car (and therefore obviously the driver), mobile devices shift into hands-free-only mode? I realize if you had multiple passengers it seems like a much harder technical problem to detect whether the person using the phone is also driving.

Zigurd 7y ago
With technologies like Nearby it is possible to determine if you are near other individuals' devices. It is possible to infer you are in a car based on samples from phone sensors. In addition, it is possible to tell you are not driving a car based on your body movements. The kinds of apps your car insurer likes you to run have to make all these inferences already (if they don't have a hardware component independent of your phone).
- decasia 7y ago
  That's so interesting, thanks! So it sounds like actually there could be a big technical piece of the solution to this problem, if devices already know (or could know) how to shift automatically into driving mode… If only there were the regulatory will to implement this, over and above being nudged (I guess?) by insurers…
  - decasia 7y ago
    Just found a good article about this in case anyone else is curious: "Insurers know exactly how often American drivers touch their phones" https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-distracted-driving-insurance-phone-texting-20190429-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-distracted-driving-in...
  - Zigurd 7y ago
    To be fair it's a lot more complicated. One reason you don't hear much about what insurance apps really do is that they don't really know the what all that data can tell them. Another is that it would creep you out. Each use case has different sensitivity to false positives/negatives. But, in general, if they've got your accelerometer data and location, they, whoever "they" might be, know you pretty well.

Zigurd 7y ago

With technologies like Nearby it is possible to determine if you are near other individuals' devices. It is possible to infer you are in a car based on samples from phone sensors. In addition, it is possible to tell you are not driving a car based on your body movements. The kinds of apps your car insurer likes you to run have to make all these inferences already (if they don't have a hardware component independent of your phone).

decasia 7y ago
That's so interesting, thanks! So it sounds like actually there could be a big technical piece of the solution to this problem, if devices already know (or could know) how to shift automatically into driving mode… If only there were the regulatory will to implement this, over and above being nudged (I guess?) by insurers…
- decasia 7y ago
  Just found a good article about this in case anyone else is curious: "Insurers know exactly how often American drivers touch their phones" https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-distracted-driving-insurance-phone-texting-20190429-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-distracted-driving-in...
- Zigurd 7y ago
  To be fair it's a lot more complicated. One reason you don't hear much about what insurance apps really do is that they don't really know the what all that data can tell them. Another is that it would creep you out. Each use case has different sensitivity to false positives/negatives. But, in general, if they've got your accelerometer data and location, they, whoever "they" might be, know you pretty well.