Posted on 03/20/2019 1:19:30 PM PDT by ETL
Most states ban texting behind the wheel, but a legislative proposal could make Nevada one of the first states to allow police to use a contentious technology to find out if a person was using a cellphone during a car crash.
The measure is igniting privacy concerns and has led lawmakers to question the practicality of the technology, even while acknowledging the threat of distracted driving.
The future of the Nevada proposal isn't clear. A similar measure introduced in 2017 failed in the New York Legislature, but lawmakers are considering it again.
Law enforcement officials argue that distracted driving is underreported and that weak punishments do little to stop drivers from texting, scrolling or otherwise using their phones.
Adding to the problem, they say there is no consistent police practice that holds those drivers accountable for traffic crashes, unlike drunken driving.
If the Nevada measure passes, it would allow police to use a device known as the "textalyzer," which connects to a cellphone and looks for user activity, such as opening a Facebook messenger call screen.
It is made by Israel-based company Cellebrite, which says the technology does not access or store personal content.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
This will be tricky.
Remember the Sutherland Spring Shooter?
The FBI tried and tried to unlock his iPhone. Neither Apple nor the carrier would cooperate.
They finally got the info they needed, but Privacy Laws prevailed.
Don’t know how I feel about this. Driving distraction is not digital- there are degrees of distraction, such as tuning a radio or engaging cruise control or reading a billboard. I don’t text while driving, but I do occasionally use a song identifier app or see who is trying to call me.
If there is a serious car crash involved, I doubt it would be hard to find a judge who would sign a search warrant. With today's modern communications, I would guess the police could have their search warrant five minutes after a person said no to a search.
It should be at LEAST as harsh as a DUI.
Definitely loss of driving privileges forever. Ideally a facial tattoo stating “I am a sociopath who doesn’t care about anyone else’s life”.
And 25 or 50 lashes.
Most places keep a judge on rocket warrant duty overnight for things like blood tests at DUI stops. So that won’t do more than delay it 10 minutes.
I said that to my wife (hey the light’s green) and got a blank stare.
The real problem is situational awareness.
A law that punishes a person who is using both hands texting on their phone on a crowded highway at rush hour the same as it punishes someone who reaches over and touches their screen for a second while at a stop light, isn’t really dealing with the issue.
And a law that punishes the second person, while leaving the woman who is putting on her makeup untouched, is simply not applying the same standards.
I bet there are 20-year-olds who text while driving who are more able to respond to an emergency than an 80-year-old with both hands on the wheel and his eyes fixed forward.
This is not to say I don’t want to crack down on idiots who are holding their phones and typing, while their car wanders around the lanes of traffic.
I sort of agree. In an ideal world the only criteria would be how much competence and attention the driver has, and that being objectively measured.
But people have made the same argument about drinking ‘I drive better after 3 drinks than some people do sober’, and it holds zero legal weight.
Nearly every law leaves some similar situation unaddressed, but we still need laws. Maybe that 20 year old can drive better texting, but I’m not willing to bet my life, or the lives of my loved ones on it, and how to objectively discriminate between the 20 year old who CAN and the 23 year old who can’t?
Once you accept authoritarian principles, this becomes easy. Every car gets a camera built in, recording the driver, and putting the data in a black box. If there is an accident, the black box shows what the driver was doing, if it was something in a list of “things known to distract drivers”, we charge them.
But who wants their car recording stuff like speed and the driver?
True.
It’s always a balance.
If driving under the influence gets you in trouble, then texting while driving should get you in at least as much, just my opinion.
The black box already does a great deal, I don’t have too much trouble with that.
I don’t give a rip if you have a few drinks before driving, but if you crash and someone is injured then why should a driver be under any less threat of a comprehensive investigation than a pilot...
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