Google Glass driver told she CAN wear techno-specs while on the road

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.

Clearly the cop was corrupt

"Abadie also beat the speeding ticket he gave her for driving at 85 miles per hour in her Prius because of lack of evidence."

A prius capable of doing 85mph? Clearly the cop lied.....

Maybe after she gets a few tickets for wearing them while driving, she won't anymore. She beat one ticket, but she still had to pay an attorney.

That still won't stop the state from revising a law making wearing them while driving illegal.

What a wonderfully ambiguous statement

"Glass is built to connect you more with the world around you, not distract you from it," a Google spokesman told El Reg in a statement.

So that's what Google glasses look like...

I never saw them in the wild and somehow the PR picture made the wearer look much cooler.

Prius can go up to 106 MPH, and depending on tires, faster.

Per JD Powers and another site, Prius definitely goes faster than 85 mph:

http://autos.jdpower.com/content/article-auto/EMOmip3/5-fast-facts-about-the-2013-toyota-prius.htm

http://priuschat.com/threads/max-speed-of-prius.2419/

As for the cop losing the ticket issuance due to lack of evidence, that is going to be bad on his career.

Usually, cop cars these days (depending on the agency, crime rates, budgets, size of force vehicles, and so on) will have clocking/radar equipment, dash-cams, and maybe both. SF and other large cities also sport two or more types of police cruiser as well as parking meter Police Interceptor III three-wheelers, and regular Ford Aerostar-type van-mounted cameras (not all on the same unit, but I've seen 2 or 3 various types of ugly to nearly clandestinely-mounted cameras that hunt for ticket scofflaws and stolen vehicles parked on public streets), and maybe he lost the ticket if his cruiser was not equipped with any kind of cams. But, if he were creative, being a professionally-trained high-speed-pursuit driver capable of using the car or officer-mounted communications gear while driving super fast, he could have whipped out (if he had one, and likely he does) his mobile and intermittently scanned his speedometer between frames of the Prius on the go.

If he forgot to turn on any existting cameras, he's going to look like a rookie, but IIUC, rookies might not be elegible to drive alone without getting their supervisors to sign off.

OnStar and other packages can also exonerate innocent drivers, too, against bogus tickets.

(Interjecting anecdote:

Don't anyone say bogus tix are never issued. I've had 2 or 3 against me, and one was just an excuse for a senior CHP to give rookie CHP an opportunity for a citation, or to teach him how to be opportunistically abusive. After all, the 2AM highway was devoid of traffic ahead of me for around a mile, and I was alone with no abreast/proximate vehicles, and the vehicle pack behind me a mile away was closing in while the pack ahead was opening the gap. I was doing 55. So, how the hell was *I* speeding with a pack moving at the same clip the CHP car was. He only thought he had a ticket because he saw my car do half a weave as I adjusted my wobbly right-hand mirror, and I'd not even departed my lane. But, it got his sharp-eyed attention, they bore down on me, and I slowed, pulled over, removed the keys from the ig, and turned on my interior lights to facilitate their casual inspection/peek-in. Passing the FST (Field Sobriety Test) with flying colors, I was left alone while they stepped out of earshot, then returned to say they were citing me for speeding. If I were a quarter ounce of anti-matter, I'd have bumped something and ripped half the Western hemisphere away out of rage and indignation at the repugnant abuse of power and outright lie used against me. Anyway, I go on and on when this memory is recalled. For such cases, I firmly feel self-acquitting, stealthy, virtually-untamperable on-board cams should be available to motorists who want them...

BTW, I beat that bullshit ticket. Know how? Not by testimony, but by the judge having the sense/decency to see what was going on. On my first court appearance, neither CHP was present, the explanation being the issuing officer was being transferred to Central California or northeast of there. The court set a new date. I appeared, and the judge then got my case before him, and read the sheet, and then proceeded to tell me the officer/s could not make it due to one being on mandatory vacation or something. Then, he proceeded to utter resetting the court date. I lost my cool and demanded to know THEY could TWICE get away with failing to appear for a bogus issue ticket but If I failed to appear even ONCE, I'd have a bench warrant out for my arrest. I re-explained what happened. Maybe he felt the rage, indignation, passion, and fury being held back, and with a courtroom full rapt/riveted viewers, he backed down, grumbled a split second, rapped his gavel, stated he was dropping the charges, and then said, "Case dismissed". I finally beat a bogus, BULLSHIT ticket.

SHIT! My blood pressure just went up over this anecdote...)

End of interjecting anecdote...

So, while Google Glass is designed to put more of the world at the eyes of the wearer, not distract the users, police dash cams and other inventive and possibly legal, available cameras are supposed to help enforce the laws -- if employed correctly and in a timely manner. If his phone had geotagging on, it would have likely been a slam-dunk as far as the speeding goes. Even if he didn't film his speedometer, recognizable landmarks in the footage alone or on concert with the geotags and some basic math and knowledge of the distances between landmarks would have saved him some face.

Again, I'm only guess about the circumstance. (I am someone who had around 13 moving violations in roughly a 4 or 5 year period my youth, and managed to keep my, license, but have been moving-violation-free since ~ 1999. After around 3 or 4 illegal/bogus tickets, I became VERY interested in ways of filming my own driving to torpedo any cop issuing a false speeding citation. Nowadays, in-phone GPS and (separately employed) geotags-on phones will either doom or exonerate) motorists truly innocent of a bogus citation -- assuming the phones are not bragged about to an officer who concots a reason to seize "as evidence" the phone. That could be an-upcoming landmark case, and a severely career-limiting-move (CLM) if phone company logs corroborate a motorist whose mobiles are seized and destroyed or "lost" in some bid to make a stinky ticket remain sticky.

Just curious...

Having not seen any particular specification on the Glass, is it possible to determine at a distance whether or not it's switched on? And surely, while the cop is busy getting out of their car, one could surreptitiously switch the glasses off anyway, and presumably it couldn't be proven that they were ever on. Looks like this judgement is going to set a bit of a precedent.

lack of evidence

I don't get this. I thought that cops use some kind of _recording_ device to measure the speed? :)

Simply compel any manufacturer of headworn devices to restrict them to driving related functionality.

At the same time, ensure all headworn cameras & mics have to comply with both Bluetooth and guesture based blocking, and turn themselves off when in the presence of another person who requires privacy.

Maybe that should be 'worn or carried'.

t-shirt slogan

if it fits.....wear it.

A bit odd to wear for a court apperance though.....or is that the de rigour for US courts?

blah

"Abadie has said she wears her Glass headset all the time, even when not using it"

during sex ? in the shower ?

enquiring minds need to know

maps

They should detect the speed and that you're not on a train line and turn off.

People who wear glasses

Someone up above said that the bar on these things could obstruct vision. So can the bar on any spectacles if you have a penchant for fashion (some specs have large sides). Anyhow. All Google has to do is ad an app that detects idiot pedestrians, that you are driving too close to the car in front, a speedo that alerts you when you are going over the limit etc and they will become a required addition to driving that is set in law.

Restrict Glass to GPS when driving

Maybe Google should make it so that only the GPS function can be active above a certain speed (i.e. no Youtube videos in Glass while driving). That would be better than those cars with Facebook access in the console....

and now

Google owns the LAW. Do all evil, all the time.

PUBLICITY STUNT

Google paid he fees, win or lose, either way she is contracted now to be on 7 radio talk shows, 5 daytime shows (Ellen and Fox Morning confirmed). Cheapest form of advertising ever.