Meet the "textalyzer"

[USN_Hokie]

New York leading the way towards a police state. I hope everyone here is against this nannystatery.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016 ... extalyzer/

[Vienna_Hokie]

Assuming there are reasonable privacy controls in place as described where you can only tell that they were using the device I don't see this as any more intrusive than a breathalyzer. It is part of an accident investigation and could clear a person if they aren't doing something they shouldn't be that puts others lives at risk. I see little difference between drunk driving and distracted driving, in either case the driver is putting other lives at risk.

If it were being used to monitor people driving and as cause to pull them over...then I'd have an issue.

Of course since it is NY I'm going to assume the will misuse the technology to trample individual rights, but as described it is a reasonable investigative tool.

[USN_Hokie]

Assuming there are reasonable privacy controls in place as described where you can only tell that they were using the device I don't see this as any more intrusive than a breathalyzer. It is part of an accident investigation and could clear a person if they aren't doing something they shouldn't be that puts others lives at risk. I see little difference between drunk driving and distracted driving, in either case the driver is putting other lives at risk.

If it were being used to monitor people driving and as cause to pull them over...then I'd have an issue.

Of course since it is NY I'm going to assume the will misuse the technology to trample individual rights, but as described it is a reasonable investigative tool.

Somebody not using their phone is not necessarily an un-distracted driver. It's not useful information. Police don't need to search your phone to figure out why you veered off the interstate or plowed into the stopped car in front of you.

[Vienna_Hokie]

By that logic they should not be able to test you for alcohol either. Why do they need to know you were drunk, you crossed the center line and killed 6 people.

They need to know because being a poor driver is not a crime, it could make you subject to civil liability, but not criminal. If you are breaking a law such as driving drunk or texting, you are willfully violating the law. If it was a woman driving and there was an open eye makeup applicator in the car, that would be part of the investigation as well, to determine if the driver was putting makeup on and thus broke the law if the state had a prohibition against distracted drivers.

[ip_law-hokie]

New York leading the way towards a police state. I hope everyone here is against this nannystatery.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016 ... extalyzer/

Fine with me.

[ip_law-hokie]

Assuming there are reasonable privacy controls in place as described where you can only tell that they were using the device I don't see this as any more intrusive than a breathalyzer. It is part of an accident investigation and could clear a person if they aren't doing something they shouldn't be that puts others lives at risk. I see little difference between drunk driving and distracted driving, in either case the driver is putting other lives at risk.

If it were being used to monitor people driving and as cause to pull them over...then I'd have an issue.

Of course since it is NY I'm going to assume the will misuse the technology to trample individual rights, but as described it is a reasonable investigative tool.

Somebody not using their phone is not necessarily an un-distracted driver. It's not useful information. Police don't need to search your phone to figure out why you veered off the interstate or plowed into the stopped car in front of you.

I think I'm a safer driver after a three of four beers too.

[USN_Hokie]

By that logic they should not be able to test you for alcohol either. Why do they need to know you were drunk, you crossed the center line and killed 6 people.

They need to know because being a poor driver is not a crime, it could make you subject to civil liability, but not criminal. If you are breaking a law such as driving drunk or texting, you are willfully violating the law. If it was a woman driving and there was an open eye makeup applicator in the car, that would be part of the investigation as well, to determine if the driver was putting makeup on and thus broke the law if the state had a prohibition against distracted drivers.

I have no problem with the continuation of that logic to drunk driving. You're right, it is irrelevant after an accident. OTOH, breathalyzers are far more often used to determine if someone is impaired BEFORE they kill someone. The "textalyzer" does nothing of the sort...its only useful AFTER an accident occurs.

You do unintentionally bring up a good point, though. The next step will be for cops to pull over people and "textalyze" their phone because they veered out of their lane. If you think that's a good idea too, you should probably remove the "libertarian" from your party affiliation (or at least capitalize it )

[BG Hokie]

New York leading the way towards a police state. I hope everyone here is against this nannystatery.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016 ... extalyzer/

I believe they would need to establish probable cause, in my opinion. Simply having an accident and a smart phone in the car is not probable cause. A witness would need to say they were looking at a phone or something similar. Even then, this evidence hardly seems iron clad. What if I checked UWS at a stop light to laugh at a know it all who doesn't understand how anyone could make money on a -400 money line bet, but put my phone down when it was green, and clobbered somebody 45 seconds further down the road. My phone didn't have anything to do with my negligence... But the very recent phone activity might lead to a further charge that I didn't deserve, even further opening me up for more civil liability.

[Vienna_Hokie]

By that logic they should not be able to test you for alcohol either. Why do they need to know you were drunk, you crossed the center line and killed 6 people.

They need to know because being a poor driver is not a crime, it could make you subject to civil liability, but not criminal. If you are breaking a law such as driving drunk or texting, you are willfully violating the law. If it was a woman driving and there was an open eye makeup applicator in the car, that would be part of the investigation as well, to determine if the driver was putting makeup on and thus broke the law if the state had a prohibition against distracted drivers.

I have no problem with the continuation of that logic to drunk driving. You're right, it is irrelevant after an accident. OTOH, breathalyzers are far more often used to determine if someone is impaired BEFORE they kill someone. The "textalyzer" does nothing of the sort...its only useful AFTER an accident occurs.

You do unintentionally bring up a good point, though. The next step will be for cops to pull over people and "textalyze" their phone because they veered out of their lane. If you think that's a good idea too, you should probably remove the "libertarian" from your party affiliation (or at least capitalize it )

I brought it up intentionally and I made the point that I would have a problem with it if they were sitting on the side of the road and pulling over cars that set the device off.

What I can't understand is how you can view being able to determine the cause of an accident as not relevant. Determining cause helps define who is responsible. By assigning responsibility, those that struggle to stay out of accidents or tend to cause more are impacted by potentially losing their driving privileges or paying higher insurance rates to cover the costs incurred on others of their actions. That is personal responsibility at its best. If not, I guess we could go to universal auto insurance where everyone pays the same and figuring out who is responsible is irrelevant. Those program always work out well Maybe we can call it Obama-Drive.

[USN_Hokie]

By that logic they should not be able to test you for alcohol either. Why do they need to know you were drunk, you crossed the center line and killed 6 people.

They need to know because being a poor driver is not a crime, it could make you subject to civil liability, but not criminal. If you are breaking a law such as driving drunk or texting, you are willfully violating the law. If it was a woman driving and there was an open eye makeup applicator in the car, that would be part of the investigation as well, to determine if the driver was putting makeup on and thus broke the law if the state had a prohibition against distracted drivers.

I have no problem with the continuation of that logic to drunk driving. You're right, it is irrelevant after an accident. OTOH, breathalyzers are far more often used to determine if someone is impaired BEFORE they kill someone. The "textalyzer" does nothing of the sort...its only useful AFTER an accident occurs.

You do unintentionally bring up a good point, though. The next step will be for cops to pull over people and "textalyze" their phone because they veered out of their lane. If you think that's a good idea too, you should probably remove the "libertarian" from your party affiliation (or at least capitalize it )

I brought it up intentionally and I made the point that I would have a problem with it if they were sitting on the side of the road and pulling over cars that set the device off.

What I can't understand is how you can view being able to determine the cause of an accident as not relevant. Determining cause helps define who is responsible. By assigning responsibility, those that struggle to stay out of accidents or tend to cause more are impacted by potentially losing their driving privileges or paying higher insurance rates to cover the costs incurred on others of their actions. That is personal responsibility at its best. If not, I guess we could go to universal auto insurance where everyone pays the same and figuring out who is responsible is irrelevant. Those program always work out well Maybe we can call it Obama-Drive.

I'm not interested in a country where your phone can be searched (I don't care how limited they say it is) with no probable cause. I'm sure that states will go the implied consent route like they did with alcohol testing, but that doesn't make it right IMO.

They tested Obama-Drive already...it makes you swerve left into the ditch, then blame the last driver for the accident.

[CFB Apologist]

New York should feed it's 1.4 Million hungry citizens before violating people's privacy. Seems logical to me.

[Vienna_Hokie]

I'm not interested in a country where your phone can be searched (I don't care how limited they say it is) with no probable cause. I'm sure that states will go the implied consent route like they did with alcohol testing, but that doesn't make it right IMO.

They tested Obama-Drive already...it makes you swerve left into the ditch, then blame the last driver for the accident.

Then that is where we are going to have to disagree. To me being in an accident, especially in a situation where the driver failed to stop or control their lane, etc and phone is in proximity creates probable cause. I also have no issue with implied consent when it comes to driving. Your actions can have a devastating impact on others and as a society I have no issues with reasonable rules to govern the use of motor vehicles. Age limits, alcohol limits, insurance requirements, etc all help protect innocent people in some way. Without assigning responsibility you cut the risk portion of the risk / reward equation to a point where there is no disincentive to put other peoples lives at risk.

Yes, we have to assume the gov will overstep it's bounds because that is what our government does now. But that does not mean that an effective tool like this should not be used. It means we should fight to ensure that it is not used to invade privacy and that legal perspective the information it provides can be validated in a courtroom (if you used the phone at a stop light 45 secs before the accident or you were streaming music the tool must be able to differentiate that from texting or reading web pages while driving).