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February 16, 2012 in Nation/World
Curb the car dashboard technology, government asks
WASHINGTON — Auto dashboards are becoming an arcade of text messages, GPS images, phone calls and web surfing, the government says, and it’s asking carmakers to curb those distractions when vehicles are moving.
Manufacturers have been loading up higher-end vehicles with an array of built-in gadgets in an effort to tempt car buyers who want to multi-task behind the wheel in today’s increasingly connected society. But the technological advances have raised concerns that drivers’ attention is being diverted too much from the road.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today proposed voluntary guidelines for manufacturers, including a recommendation that they design dashboards so that distracting devices are automatically disabled unless the vehicle is stopped and the transmission is in park.
“We recognize that vehicle manufacturers want to build vehicles that include the tools and conveniences expected by today’s American drivers,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. “The guidelines we’re proposing would offer real-world guidance to automakers to help them develop electronic devices that provide features consumers want without disrupting a driver’s attention or sacrificing safety.”
Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said carmakers will review the guidelines, which have a 60-day comment period. She noted that the industry has had its own voluntary guidelines since 2002.
“Drivers are going to have conversations, listen to music and read maps while driving, and automakers are helping them do this more safely with integrated hands-free systems that help drivers focus on the road,” Bergquist said.
The guidelines, which are directed at passenger cars and sport utility vehicles, would exempt safety devices such electronic-warning systems that alert drivers to potential collisions or lane changes. GPS and other navigation devices that provide directions would also be permitted while driving, but the safety administration is asking that the systems be designed so that drivers can’t manually enter a destination unless the car is in park.
The alternative is for drivers to go back to studying maps while they drive, which is even less safe, Strickland said.
Bergquist, of the carmakers, cautioned about preventing addresses from being entered into GPS devices unless the vehicle is stopped.
“There are often passengers in the car who can enter addresses, so we need to consider that when looking at requiring these technologies to only be used in park,” she said. “And if the GPS is disabled when moving, consumers can always bring their own Garmin into the vehicle. It’s complicated.”
Other dashboard technologies recommended for automatic disabling include text-messaging, Internet browsing, social media browsing, phone dialing and computer screen messages of 30 characters or more that are unrelated to driving.
The guidelines would make exceptions for these devices if they are designed only for use by passengers and can’t be accessed or seen by the driver.
Manufacturers are also urged to take steps to make technologies safer that drivers are allowed to use while driving. That includes reducing to two seconds or less the amount of time drivers must divert their eyes from the road to use a device. Devices should also be designed so that drivers don’t have to use more than one hand or glance through extraneous information.
The guidelines are a good first step toward reducing driver distractions, said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety offices.
But “the safest thing is for drivers not to use these systems at all — both hands on the wheel and the mind focused solely on driving,” she said.
Anne Fleming, senior vice president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an industry-supported safety research group, said it’s good that NHTSA and automakers are working together, but it “will be very hard to measure whether it’s reducing distraction and whether it’s reducing it enough.”
One reason NHTSA decided to pursue voluntary guidelines instead of mandatory rules is that officials wanted to do something quickly, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters in a conference call. The process for writing federal rules often takes years to complete.
The guidelines are also a way “to continue the drumbeat” that distracted driving is a serious safety issue that costs lives, said LaHood, who has been vigorously campaigning on the subject for more than three years.
NHTSA is also considering future guidelines to address portable electronic devices drivers carry with them in cars, including GPS navigation systems, smartphones, and electronic tablets and pads.
In December, the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates accidents, said that texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed and urged all states to impose total bans except for emergencies.
That recommendation was inspired by recent deadly crashes, including one in which a teenager sent or received 11 text messages in 11 minutes before an accident. There were an estimated 3,092 deaths in crashes affected by distractions in 2010.
Currently, 35 states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, and nine states and the District of Columbia bar hand-held cellphone use. Thirty states ban all cellphone use for beginning drivers. But enforcement is generally not a high priority, and no states ban the use of hands-free devices for all drivers.
Texting while driving increased 50 percent in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, according to NHTSA. A government survey of drivers found that two out of 10 say they’ve sent messages from behind the wheel — and that spikes much higher among young adults.
AAA said it’s important to ensure that dashboard technologies aren’t simply making it more convenient and more appealing to drive while distracted.
“Available research evidence is extremely limited and highly inconclusive on the real risks that in-car communications technologies pose to drivers, even when systems are limited to voice-activation only,” said AAA CEO and President Robert L. Darbelnet. AAA has a study under way to address that question, he said.
© Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Stocks plummet as outlook in Europe dims 
Benaround on February 16 at 1:43 p.m.
Give me a break….if people were required to pay attention
to things…they would never elect Democrats.
RedCedar on February 16 at 1:58 p.m.
Cars are becoming the best example yet of “whatever is not prohibited is mandatory”. It’s no wonder they all look the same.
The basic government approach to the auto industry seems to be this:
1) Demand that the car makers make cars that people don’t want to buy, mostly through fuel economy, safety, and emissions standards.
2) Demand that the car makers eliminate features that people do want to buy, such as the fancy electronics packages that the NHTSA is gunning for here.
3) When the car makers are on the verge of bankruptcy due to not enough people wanting to buy these bureaucrat-designed cars, spend the public’s money to buy older but still perfectly good cars, pour grit in their engines to destroy them, in order to encourage people to buy new cars.
4) And if none of that works, temporarily nationalize the companies, tell the stockholders to go jump in a lake, fire any executives that the government doesn’t like, and then re-privatize the companies.
5) Go back to step one and add more items to the “mandatory” and “prohibited” lists. Repeat as needed until private automobiles cease to exist. Blame the enemy party.
Loudin on February 16 at 2:38 p.m.
Way to go off on another old-coot rant, RedCheddar.
Anyway, back to the story: More legislation and gub’ment mandates aren’t going to do anything if people simply choose to be passive drivers. Heck, turn signals have been on automobiles since 1939 and yet we still witness lazy drivers who can’t be bothered to move the indicator stalk one inch up or down. It’s just the nature of a significant number of Americans to drive like idiots…and you simply can’t regulate their stupidity.
Loudin
PS R.C.: There’s a menacing cloud resembling the Kaiser that is hovering over 5-Mile Prairie right now. Do you want me to go shake my fist at it for you?
IHike4Fun on February 16 at 2:54 p.m.
Benaround - your post made me laugh.
RedCedar on February 16 at 3:45 p.m.
The smarter the cars get, the dumber the drivers seem to be. They already have automatic parallel parking and lane-following technology on the luxury cars. I’m sure they’ll have automatic turn signaling before long, or maybe not — if all the cars are driving themselves, they’ll communicate with each other by wi-fi and the drivers can just concentrate on their latte, eye-liner, and text messaging.
terryalan on February 16 at 4:40 p.m.
Gee, loudmouth..ageist bigot much?
earful on February 16 at 5:29 p.m.
Germans win this one. They still emphasize cars with barely functional cup holders, driver centric controls and bucket seats so tight even a glove box feels impossible to reach.
jdspokanewa on February 16 at 5:59 p.m.
This isn’t liberals, its cranky old people (republicans) who say “these darn kids with their texting and their iPads, there needs to be a law against them!”
I’m posting this as I drive down spraugue while eating a big Mac and listening to my extremely loud sound system.
Posted via HTC Sensation :-p