Part of the problem in regulations I think is the amount of lobbying power the car and phone industries have in local and federal politics. You don't want to piss off an industry that is showing major growth by regulating it and at the same time you don't want to lose the money they pay your campaign. The NTSB has been asking for restrictions for a while now, at least since 2012, they even want GPS units to be static images except when showing the turns because drivers can be distracted by the moving images.
Here is a quote about what they wanted.
GPS devices are welcome to act as co-pilot on your trip(s) so long as they don't do anything distracting -- like move, for instance.Section V.5.b of the document titled Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for In-Vehicle Electronic Devices says that "Dynamic, continuously moving maps are not recommended."The section, which deals with photographs or videos, says that static or near-static maps for the purpose of driving directions are acceptable. Near static is defined as being updated every few seconds.
They also took issue with the screens of 2012 that showed tons of text and scrolling text too. Yet, none of their recommendations were ever debated or put up as a law. It's time to stand up and do something though, it's already dangerous out there, without rules on these systems there will be more, if 2000 deaths due to seatbelts not being worn is too many, then 2000 people dead because somebody was playing with their dashboard isn't acceptable.
That's absolutely crazy that they have been going at this for 3 years now, didn't realise that.
you don't want to lose the money they pay your campaign.
That is so much the problem, I'm from the UK so this stuff isn't nearly as big as it in the US although does play a part. I'd hope the UK or EU would be able to set some regulations for if/when these dashboards start cropping up over here, but this type of stuff should be international. You're spot on with the seatbelt point, if this tech ends up in distracted drivers crashing and killing people then it's not acceptable at all.
Part of the problem in regulations I think is the amount of lobbying power the car and phone industries have in local and federal politics. You don't want to piss off an industry that is showing major growth by regulating it and at the same time you don't want to lose the money they pay your campaign. The NTSB has been asking for restrictions for a while now, at least since 2012, they even want GPS units to be static images except when showing the turns because drivers can be distracted by the moving images.
Here is a quote about what they wanted.
GPS devices are welcome to act as co-pilot on your trip(s) so long as they don't do anything distracting -- like move, for instance. Section V.5.b of the document titled Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for In-Vehicle Electronic Devices says that "Dynamic, continuously moving maps are not recommended." The section, which deals with photographs or videos, says that static or near-static maps for the purpose of driving directions are acceptable. Near static is defined as being updated every few seconds.
They also took issue with the screens of 2012 that showed tons of text and scrolling text too. Yet, none of their recommendations were ever debated or put up as a law. It's time to stand up and do something though, it's already dangerous out there, without rules on these systems there will be more, if 2000 deaths due to seatbelts not being worn is too many, then 2000 people dead because somebody was playing with their dashboard isn't acceptable.
That's absolutely crazy that they have been going at this for 3 years now, didn't realise that.
That is so much the problem, I'm from the UK so this stuff isn't nearly as big as it in the US although does play a part. I'd hope the UK or EU would be able to set some regulations for if/when these dashboards start cropping up over here, but this type of stuff should be international. You're spot on with the seatbelt point, if this tech ends up in distracted drivers crashing and killing people then it's not acceptable at all.