New service to stop loose lips from crashing cars

October 13, 2008 By PETER SVENSSON , AP Technology Writer

(AP) -- When David Teater's 12-year-old son, Joe, was killed in 2004 by a driver who was talking on a cell phone, he tried to cut back on his own habit of driving and talking. It turned out to be very difficult.



Content from The Associated Press expires 15 days after original publication date. For more information about The Associated Press, please visit www.ap.org .

3.8 /5 (16 votes)  

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

Wasabi
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: 3.8 / 5 (4)
I'm not to keen on this from the information that is presented thus far. And what about when I'm a passenger in the car, how would it distinguish my phone from the driver's?
gmurphy
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: not rated yet
I suppose the service would have to be initiated by the customer.
Velanarris
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: not rated yet
I'm not to keen on this from the information that is presented thus far. And what about when I'm a passenger in the car, how would it distinguish my phone from the driver's?


When you use phone service your ESN is used as a handshake. so every signal sent or recieved is "branded" as originating or destined to your device. It's the same principle that allows millions of computers to use the internet, and even something as simple as mail to reach your house. Think of it as your digital address.

This type of data is already used to determine if someone involved in a car accident was on the phone at the time of the collision. It's just done manually through using the black box on the vehicle and pulling your phone records. Adding bluetooth devices to vehicles makes it even easier and the Blackbox logs what devices it connects to and whether they're active at the time of collision. For some auto manufacturers the police do not need a warrant to pull this data, I think currently Ford and GM.
ryuuguu
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
I'm not to keen on this from the information that is presented thus far. And what about when I'm a passenger in the car, how would it distinguish my phone from the driver's?


read the article
"For instance, parents will get alerts if their kids override the motion-sensing feature to indicate that they're riding in car rather than driving. "
hudres
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
I could easily see a class-action lawsuit against this company. There are so many illegalities and infringements of rights that it shocks the mind. If this takes hold as an involuntary action by the carriers, I would have no problem joining a class-action suit. My attorney agrees with me.
ryuuguu
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: 4 / 5 (1)
@hudres

Americans you just gotta wonder. The right to drive a a couple tons of metal at high speed in a dangerous manner, and if anyone tries to stop us from killing and maiming bystanders we'll make buck out of it.
Wasabi
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
I'm not to keen on this from the information that is presented thus far. And what about when I'm a passenger in the car, how would it distinguish my phone from the driver's?


read the article
"For instance, parents will get alerts if their kids override the motion-sensing feature to indicate that they're riding in car rather than driving. "


Damn, I did miss that sentence, thanks Ryuuguu.
Rank 3.8 /5 (16 votes)
Tags

Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • Empirical data regarding shower heads and water
    created8 hours ago
  • feed hold button on CNC lathe
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • RFAC in Fortran
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • dynamics 2/32
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • dynamics
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • Vibration Absorbtion Problem
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - General Engineering

More news stories

Sony's Hirai refuses to abandon dire TV business

Struggling Japanese entertainment giant Sony will not abandon its cash-bleeding television business, its incoming CEO says, but he acknowledges tough decisions lie ahead including over redundancies.

Technology / Business

created 6 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created 2 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created 2 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West

(PhysOrg.com) -- The least expensive way for the Western U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created 2 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Engineering images bring life to submerged city

(PhysOrg.com) -- Photo-realistic 3D mapping and digital reconstruction of an ancient underwater city in Greece have earned a team from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies ...

Technology / Engineering

created 1 hour ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 1


The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males

A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...

Could Venus be shifting gear?

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that our cloud-covered neighbour spins a little slower than previously measured. Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the ...

Experts reveal how plants don't get sunburn

(PhysOrg.com) -- Experts at the University of Glasgow have discovered how plants survive the harmful rays of the sun.

Team isolates nerve cells involved in storing long term memory and gene proteins associated with them

(Medical Xpress) -- A research team in Taiwan has succeeded in isolating two nerve cells in fruit fly brains that are believed to be the major players in allowing for the formation of long term memories. Furthermore, ...

Fool's gold may prove an unlikely alternative to overexploited catalytic materials

Catalytic materials, which lower the energy barriers for chemical reactions, are used in everything from the commercial production of chemicals to catalytic converters in car engines. However, with current catalytic materials ...

SLAC, Stanford team focuses on high-energy electrons to treat cancer

Accelerator physicists at SLAC and cancer specialists from Stanford are working on a new technology that could dramatically reduce the time needed for cancer radiation treatments. The team ran an initial experiment ...