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--- But if you instated a nation-wide death penalty for texting and driving, and then actually executed a few people, compliance would likely follow soon after.

--- But if you instated a nation-wide death penalty for texting and driving, and then actually executed a few people, compliance would likely follow soon after. --- Draconian enforcement has it's place, but it's not on this sort of policy. This would either become a tool of assassination, or just kill a bunch of young, poor people. The enforcement would stop for wealthy kids in privileged areas. Honestly, this is a more carrot then stick problem. It's unsolvable with the privacy rights American's are entitled to under the constitution. The best approach would be to incentivize safe usage and create some sort of system to track and penalize unsafe behavior. It would need to be a minor fine, but that would make enforcement more likely, give better data, and allow us to punish habitual offenders who actually cause harm.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
The thought experiment is predicated on just application of the policy. There are dozens of practical problems with the idea more serious than "it would cut unevenly across socioeconomic and racial layers." The carrot/stick idea is interesting though. I wonder if you could incentivize manufacturers to make a really good triangulating beacon that would allow a phone to know if it's in the driver area of the car, and whether the car is in motion. The phone could disable all functions for the duration of the drive based on this signal. You'd do this in firmware and ideally using some sort of chain of trust that can't be circumvented by rooting the phone. Free software folks would squawk, but the world might be better off for it.