West Virginia seeks Google Glass driving ban
No funny cat videos for motorists
The next time Sergey Brin visits West Virginia, he'd better think twice before getting behind the wheel. Lawmakers in that state have proposed a new law banning the use of Google Glass and similar headsets while driving.
"The problem with [Glass] – and this might not be the right term – is that it's an open architecture," Delegate Gary Howell, lead sponsor of the bill, told El Reg. "So you can watch funny cat videos while you're driving down the highway, which probably isn't a good idea."
The proposed bill would amend West Virginia's existing traffic-safety law, passed during the last legislative session, which prohibits drivers from using all electronic devices except those with "hands-free features".
According to Howell, the current language of the law doesn't adequately cover head-mounted displays such as Google Glass and its inevitable competitors.
"They're hands-free too, but they defeat the purpose of what our intent was," Howell said.
Howell, a Republican, admits that there are probably many applications for Glass that could potentially be useful for drivers, such as GPS navigation. The trouble, he says, is that there's no way of knowing whether a particular driver is using the device responsibly.
What's more, Howell says, even a GPS app could potentially be distracting for many drivers if it was projected directly into their eyes.
"One of the comments I kept hearing is that it's just like a HUD in a jet fighter, but that's not quite right," Howell said. "The mechanics are the same, but the HUD is delivering information critical to the operation of the vehicle. Also, the pilot has probably had millions of dollars' worth of training. And can you imagine what his CO would say if he knew he was watching cat videos?"
Howell says he has yet to see Google Glass in person, but he's curious to try it out – and he has no problem with its use anywhere but behind the wheel.
"The people who talk about privacy issues are being silly," Howell said. "When you're walking down a public street, you have no expectation of privacy there."
He added that owners of private property, such as homes and businesses, would be perfectly within their rights to ban the use of the devices – as the owner of the 5-Point Café in Seattle, Washington has already done.
If the law passes both houses of the West Virginia legislature, the ban on Glass while driving will take effect on July 1, 2013.
After that, Brin and other headset aficionados will need to find another way to navigate the state's highways. A self-driving car, perhaps? ®
COMMENTS
Sorry but your eyes should be on the bloody road. Anything that distracts you and your vision is bad news.
Cars are 2 tonnes of death in the wrong hands and do you not think that the 4,000 lives lost each year in the UK alone is a great statistic? that's not even including cyclists and pedestrians.
Technology has a place and it isn't on your head while you drive. Google should be more proactive in ensuring these things can't be used while doing anything that requires concentration.
OMG
The world must be ending, a politician that wants to make a sensible amendment to a law....
Seriously I don't know how bad it is in other countries currently, but you have no idea how many times I've almost been rammed off the road due to people being distracted by cell phones, MP3 players, or I've even seen them watching god damn movies while driving on LCD screens while almost ramming people. I can't even begin to imagine them with things like google glass on, and how bad it would be.
I vote they also go one step further, and ban them on people walking on the damn street cause I've seen pedestrians walk into the street so many times into oncoming traffic while they were so engrossed in texting(while wearing ear buds blasting music so they can't even hear you honk the damn horn) its not even funny.
Have you seen the idiots who mount their sat navs right in front of them in the middle of the windscreen exactly in their eye line, probably thinking they are fighter pilots.
That distraction is bad enough, but for anyone to say, 'they ban what they don't understand' beggars belief.
They probably have an over-inflated view of their own skills at the wheel. I've seen them come, I've seen them go... Down.
Do they come with prescription lenses?
However they guy is correct, last year a Polish lorry driver killed a motorist while watching a video while he was driving his HGV. There are some idiots that like to mock the proposed legislation but just ask Lord Ahmed about the time he killed a motorist because he had been texting while driving, he got off lightly because the couldn't prove he was texting at the time.
So if, and it is likely, someone driving round with a pair of these on drives straight into someone you care for, how would you feel.
Me I'd be the first person in the world to kill someone with their own Google glasses, let the jury convict me of that rage.
@Larry F54
"Where is the war on car traffic?"
A good question. I recall when there was the rail accidents at Potters Bar and people were saying "Ooh, I won't go on trains again", completely failing to realise that there was the equivalent of a Potters Bar *every two days* on the roads!
It's already been proven repeatedly that using a mobile device at the wheel is as dangerous as driving whilst at the legal blood alcohol limit, so, in this country at least, it should already be covered under existing legislation if only we had enough Police on the roads to actually *enforce* those laws...
