Google and Apple in race to make cars 'the ultimate mobile device'

These things clearly need strict(er) limits.

No messaging, no comms, the only thing allowed should be an emergency popup to call someone if necessary (urgent / emergency).

And this is a good place for eye-tracking - turn the screen to blank if it's looked at for a fraction over 2 seconds.

Just had another thought...............Should this be added to the NCAP rating for the car? The more distracting the clutter, the lower the rating?
Who do I contact to get this considered as part of the assessment?

This is a good example of where businesses at large, and vehicle operators in particular are more concerned about peripheral things (profit making, Tweeting, etc) than concentrating on driving.
The "Presumed Liability" on the Government E-Petition website is designed to refocus operators' understanding of their responsibility when using hazardous vehicles. Please consider signing the petition and passing this message on to anyone (clubs, etc) who may be supportive.
Link: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/57804

Happy and Safe Cycling
Peter

Worth noting:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/01/scientific-odds-using-c...

Anything that distracts you from driving your vehicle increases the risk of crashing.

I don't wish to be sensationalist, but I fail to see how this integration is a 'good thing'. I'm looking at buying a large estate car to accommodate my growing family, and the Audi and BMW offerings include:

- Speech recital of emails, and reply via voice dictation (no comments on how much mental processing resources you might be dedicating to the wording of that email that is, after al, too important to wait until you reach the office)
- Social media; you can check facebook statuses, FFS!
- A bewildering array of apps

Sure, you can say that drivers will try and do these things anyway, but the fact is that currently, texting at the wheel is something which, rightly, provokes widespread condemnation and requires a certain amount of effort. These advances will just make it easier to be distratced, particularly if combined with all the assistance aids such as cruise control which auto-adjusts to the vehicle speed in front, lane departure warnings etc. A cyclist on the road just increasingly becomes an unexpected hazard for which the driver needs to actually be alert.

I trust the ability of the car to drive itself more than the person behind the wheel to

The point has been fundamentally missed if the belief here is that these collaborations will result in cars basically having iPads in the centre of the dash which can be used to nail all 3 stars on that tricky Angry Birds level while driving to work...

It's simply about car manufacturers learning from software developers on how to make their own vehicular-based systems better integrated and fundamentally easier to use, i.e. exactly where we are now with the likes of mobile phones and tablets (at least if you know how to use them properly).

The future is clearly voice-control for these systems, a technology which is widely available on phones, tablets, games consoles, TVs, and of course plenty of cars already. Even if such devices did require a button press or two to activate them (much like on a phone), it's no different to pressing a button to put the window down, put the heated screen on, turn the radio on, whatever. I fail to see the added distraction?

At the end of the day, bad drivers will always be bad drivers, regardless of the technology available in cars.

"Fortunately for California’s cyclists the rules appear to only apply to motor vehicles. That means that cyclists usingGoogle Glass are probably in the clear for the moment."

In the clear - but still just *SO* stupid!

All things motorised are evil and driven by pathological mass-murderers, and anything that 'improves' these machines and agents of Satan is to be demonised and panicked about.,

when I'm in mass murderer mode I can use the steering wheel controls to thumb thru my contacts and check on the screen that I'm going to call the right person - this is convenient but a lot less safe for other road users than having to pre program voice tags to call people (20year old technology) - oh and I can check the song/artist and read the scrolling weather, no panic just good old plain concern - I can recall when drivers with good morals killed people when turning over and reinserting a cassette - as a cyclist I'm pretty concerned that someone approaching me at 80km/hr isn't looking at the road - it's not improvement its distraction.

This is all going on while the likes of Boris are calling for cyclists to be banned from wearing earphones.

Touch screens for the driver to control are completely the wrong interface as they require the driver to look away from the road.

ANY device or car manufacturer pushing the use of in-car touch screens is guilty by association of any injury or death arising from the use.

These devices need to be tactile so they can be operated by feel only.

Any use needs to be met with instant ban, large fine, and seizure of the vehicle, basically as if the driver was drunk, with a long prison sentence should they break the ban.

Ah, Paul, don't expect the hotheads to listen to you - the sky will fall, whatever sense you talk! All things motorised are evil and driven by pathological mass-murderers, and anything that 'improves' these machines and agents of Satan is to be demonised and panicked about.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that make the interface between the driver and the vehicle simpler is likely to be a good thing. As you say, legislation about built-in technology is pretty strict; let's hope legislation of bolt-on technology catches up.

Get ready for more of this:

I think the tone of this article is perhaps a little sensational in terms of what is actually being reported here (or at least the comments it is intended to provoke)...

It's not about having a big screen in your dash on which you can view your Twitter feed whilst driving, it's about having easy-to-use systems in vehicles which better integrate with each other and with drivers' mobile phones, and thereby moving drivers' attention away from using handheld devices, whether mounted or otherwise.

Yes, a number of higher-end vehicle manufacturers have had proprietary smartphone-like systems in their cars for a while now but, by and large, they're extremely expensive and very fiddly to use.

With my driving hat on, I would personally welcome an affordable system based on something like Android or iOS that integrates things like navigation, entertainment and the secondary controls in the car, as well as linking up to the mobile network to allow web access, for instance, to direct me to the cheapest local petrol station if I'm in an unfamiliar area.

As OldRidgeback kind of alludes to above, younger drivers are already tech-savvy with mobile operating systems and would undoubtedly see them as desirable in vehicles, but the key for manufacturers is in ensuring any driver knows how to use the system properly, rather than whizzing past a school with their head buried in the manual trying to work out how to switch on Radio 4!

Suffice to say though, access to apps like Facebook, Twitter and the like should naturally be disabled whilst driving, or just not supported on the platform at all, but that wouldn't be difficult to achieve.

I'm interested to see how this pans out myself. My mobile phone (an ageing Galaxy S2), which is activated by voice control whilst in the car, replaced both my TomTom for navigation and my CD player for listening to music some time ago now.

It's too easy to say these technologies make things worse, the results of the interactions do get tested, and can also be applied to the benefit of the drivers safety. (withholding calls on the right moment in difficult traffic circumstances etc.) It does need to get standardised what cognitive load is and how much can be tolerated (and in what instance).
in country's like Japan and South Korea it's really common for drivers to even have dvd's or tv on during driving (mainly during traffic jams) in these country's the cognitive load tolerance is a lot higher then in Europe/US. (probably not so many cyclist on the road though)

Driver distraction won't be avoided. The govt might pass some legislation that will never, ever, be policed, and then we'll all get self-driving cars. But, due to legal issues, the human will in theory still have to have control - in practise meaning "occasionally tell the car which road to be on at a junction".

Hopefully hands-free phone kits will also be banned. Car manufacturers know this technology has issues and safety campaigners have already raised concerns. But the industry wants to attract sales to younger drivers as these people are less interested in motor vehicloes than previous generations.

Having ploughed into a bunch of cyclists then a crowd on the pedestrian
crossing the driver was heard to say ...

"I was distracted when the car tweeted me ...."

It gets worse not better

Oh great. That's just what we need. I thought the research that's been done suggested there's very little difference in effect on driving between talking on a hand held or a hands free phone. And they're basically saying hands free is legal so let's build a load more stuff into something you don't have to hold. That'll make the roads safer