Next time ...
Maybe the cops will be waiting outside with a ticket for "driving with obstructed vision".
Google Glass driver told she CAN wear techno-specs while on the road
It's safe to wear Google Glass behind the wheel after a California court struck down a woman's traffic citation – which was issued by a highway patrolman for wearing the head-mounted computer. Cecilia Abadie wearing Google Glass Cecilia Abadie and her lawyer meet the media after beating the rap (Credit: San Diego Union …
-
-
-
Friday 17th January 2014 02:54 GMT Gray Ham
Re: Next time ...
Here (In Australia) at least, "obstructed vision" applies to anything that gets in the way or can distract you, including GPS, things dangling from your rearview mirror, etc, etc.
If a cop is grumpy and you give a bit of lip, you can get a ticket for a dangling rosary. I'm sure some cops would be quite happy to test out whether the side-bar of a google glass would be a large enough obstruction to your peripheral vision to justify a ticket.
-
Friday 17th January 2014 10:02 GMT MrXavia
Re: Next time ...
"They are glasses, with stuff on the outside. They aren't obstructive."
LOOK at them, a big bar down the right hand side of the glasses.. that WILL impede your peripheral vision, the same way a thick pair of glasses would, and I would expect the police to test the eyesight of someone wearing anything that might impede their vision...
-
Friday 17th January 2014 11:56 GMT Nigel 11
Re: Next time ...
LOOK at them, a big bar down the right hand side of the glasses.. that WILL impede your peripheral vision,
Careful ... do you want to create a significant minority who are banned from driving? Some people don't have peripheral vision. They may need to wear very strong corrective lenses, which can correct only what's in front of them not what's to the side. Or they may have had certain eye diseases which have destroyed or damaged their peripheral vision before diagnosis and (in some cases) cure.
You'd also have to ban motor-cycles, since it's not legal to ride one without a helmet and helmets cut your peripheral vision.
It present (in the UK at least) peripheral vision is not a requirement for driving. Be careful what you wish!
-
-
Friday 17th January 2014 15:36 GMT M Gale
Re: Next time ...
If it stops motorcycles from weaving down the white line when the other traffic is "only" doing 65mph then fine, make helmets illegal
I get the feeling that you're exaggerating.
Don't get envious of the legal ability of motorbike riders to filter. Get a motorbike, and take advantage.
-
Friday 17th January 2014 18:40 GMT Eddy Ito
@M Gale
He isn't exaggerating. Here in SoCal I see it regularly. Sure there is a lot of filtering forward which is usually fine but I think he is talking about what often happens on the freeway when traffic, while heavy, is flowing quite well, meaning 60 mph or so, and you get a yahoo or two on their sport bikes whitelining at 90 mph or more which is already illegal because of the speed. Fortunately CA finally, just this month, put out some guidelines on the subject and I feel it's because it seems more people have been filtering forward through stopped surface street traffic at quite high speeds recently.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 17th January 2014 08:28 GMT 's water music
Re: Next time ...
> They could try - but since the whole point of the Google Glass is that it *doesn't* obstruct your vision such a claim would fall under "knowingly and willfully making a false affidavit to the court under oath" - in short: perjury.
Yeah, because courts /always/ get the cops when they do that
-
-
-
-
Friday 17th January 2014 14:40 GMT Eddy Ito
It's California
The land of infinite regulation so naturally, there's a law for that:
V C Section 23120 Temple Width of Glasses
23120. No person shall operate a motor vehicle while wearing glasses having a temple width of one-half inch or more if any part of such temple extends below the horizontal center of the lens so as to interfere with lateral vision.
Not sure it would apply to Glass since technically Glass ain't glasses. Fret not ye subjects of
KaliCali, I'm sure there is some politician diligently working on the problem*.*The problem being how to maximize Google's campaign contribution.
-
-
Friday 17th January 2014 18:46 GMT Ian Michael Gumby
Truly a glasshole
She got lucky.
Lets be clear...
The judge threw the case out because there was no evidence to show that the glasses were activated while she was driving. In fact, if memory serves, she maintained that she was wearing them while they were turned off. Since there are no prescriptive lenses, she is truly a glasshole for wearing them. (If not functioning, then its a 'fashion statement' which would make her a glasshole.)
-
-
Friday 17th January 2014 02:27 GMT MrDamage
What bollocks
"“driving with a monitor visible in violation of California Vehicle Code 27602” didn’t apply to his client since the law was passed before Google Glass was available."
Thats like saying hacking laws are invalid because they were written well before any of the current generation of OS releases's flaws were known. Just because the device is "new", it does not give the owner the right to breach the law.
"Glass is built to connect you more with the world around you, not distract you from it,"
Bullshit. The more information you plaster on the glass to "connect" people to the world, the more attention they have to pay to the device, and not to the road and road users around them. People do not have an infinite amount of attention, so they should be dedicating it to the task at hand, and not be distracted by google goggles.
-
Friday 17th January 2014 10:39 GMT RISC OS
Re: What bollocks
This is bad... the police won't know it is on until they stop someone, and then they will just turn it off. Police will get charged and just worn't stop anyone...
And what will happen when she runs some kid over because she is too busy twittering with her eyeballs? 3 months driviong ban and 200 hours commuity service - suspended - probably
This is stupid ruling, should be no different then letting someone drive while using their smartphone.
-
Friday 17th January 2014 12:03 GMT Nigel 11
Re: What bollocks
This is bad... the police won't know it is on until they stop someone, and then they will just turn it off. Police will get charged and just worn't stop anyone.
You mean like drivers who were texting or otherwise playing with their mobile, who turn it off just after they've killed someone?
If necessary, mandate that Google glasses and suchlike maintain an activity log, and that the police are entitled to check that log. Like mobile phones do, and the police can.
A time will probably come when N'th generation Google glasses will be good enough to provide full augmented reality, and it will then become safer to have your car's instrumentation relayed into your field of forward vision, than to have to take your eyes off the road to (for example) check your speed. Likewise traffic warnings, which if displayed on roadside devices can be missed due to (say) a high-sided vehicle on your nearside. At that future time, I imagine a certification process will be required, to separate the products of adequate quality from the cheap toys. Some decades later, they may even become compulsory.
-
Friday 17th January 2014 15:24 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: What bollocks
This is bad... the police won't know it is on until they stop someone, and then they will just turn it off. Police will get charged and just worn't stop anyone..
Subpoena to mobile phone company, did Glass have a data context active at the time of stopping. Yes it did. Did the driver turn it off. Yes he/she did - when a phone battery is embedded there is no way to "abruptly" take it off the network. It will actually perform sign-off so this has to be deliberate action by the user.
So, right my dear, here is your driving ban, 6 points on the licence and a year in chokey for "perverting the course of justice".
By the way, this is being done regularly for any case where there is a reasonable suspicion that the phone may have been a cause of an accident today. Mobile networks handle thousands of these requests a week nowdays. There are police forces that do it "by default" for every accident just in case.
Alternatively - subpoena to Google. They are obliged to cooperate in this case. If they have to provide police with full information with regards to anything where a glasshole has been involved they may end up actually rethinking the product... (yeah, I know - two teaspoons of wishful thinking).
-
Sunday 19th January 2014 20:07 GMT SDoradus
Re: What bollocks
It's a mistake to treat Glass legally as though it's a mobile phone. There's no technical reason Glass or similar competing products have to be connected to the cloud to operate. Video recording data could be dumped to local storage via bluetooth, for example. Under such circumstances getting a subpoena for the device's cloud data context will yield nothing.
More importantly, even if the device is on and recording, that doesn't mean it will be distracting the driver. If just a video is being made it's not different from a motorcycle or car helmetcam or dashcam, legally speaking, except for one thing; the data context would count as a business record for the purpose of the hearsay rule. In other words it could be produced in court by the defendant, not the police, to prove that her usage was innocent (and, if she was recording video including the speedometer, that she was not speeding).
-
-
-
Sunday 19th January 2014 19:54 GMT SDoradus
Re: What bollocks
No. The point is that in common-law systems it is assumed that laws need to be re-interpreted in the light of new developments. That's why case law is allowed to set 'precedent' which can overturn earlier 'precedent' or statutory interpretation.
As for Glass being distracting, 'connecting with the world' doesn't just mean giving the wearer real-time information about the world. It can also mean streaming to others or recording, neither of which involve distracting the wearer.
The real reason police would be unhappy for things like Glass to become common is that it would give the world information about police misconduct. It's only a matter of time before a Glass recording is used to prove that the police version of events during an arrest is false. It could, for example, have been used to disprove the allegation that the wearer was going 85mph in a 60mph zone.
-
-
-
Friday 17th January 2014 08:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Clearly the cop was corrupt
On German motorways I've driven mine (a 2010 Prius fully loaded with wife and kids) at 100 mph (160 km/h as measured by the gps). I wanted to see if it could go faster, but the wife was already complaining, so I kept at that speed. I must say that in "power" mode it handles those speeds better than I expected. Of course, suddenly it is spending almost double the normal fuel consumption, but who cares...
-
-
-
Monday 20th January 2014 07:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Autobahn speed limits
I thought it was common knowledge that some parts of some German autobahns had no speed limits. It is a typical tourist attraction for young males from neighbouring countries. Just remember that where there is a speed limit you'd better drive at a speed under it, the fines are rather high!
-
-
-
-
Sunday 19th January 2014 07:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Clearly the cop was corrupt
It was a small attempt at irony, yes. Not all Prius owners are anal retentive fuel savers (at least I hope).
I bought mine more mostly for overall comfort, but above all the great transmission/gear box, which makes it the less stressing car I've done 10+ hour drives in. I just wish I could have afforded the radar controlled cruise control. The missus loving the car had nothing to do with my choice, I swear!
Of course, as the kids grow up I am thinking that investing on some kind of separation partition between front and back seats (fully audio isolated, of course) would have been a wiser choice.
-
-
-
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
