California Court Bans Checking Smartphone Maps While Driving

Are paper maps illegal too? What about having someone in the passenger seat check the map and then tell me what to do? Can they hold the phone in front of my face for me so I can see the map?

I honestly just wish they'd settle for a simple, concrete description of what's acceptable while driving and what isn't. Like, you must always keep your eyes on the road, or you must always have both hands on the wheel, or whatever. Of course, this would have collateral damage - reaching over to change the radio station becomes illegal. But that's a distraction too, isn't it?

I think about this occasionally since I use my phone to play music in the car. When I reach over to tap 'next track' on the incredibly broken Bluetooth hands-free kit (that CA law requires me to have) to change tracks, I'm technically distracted. Is it any different from reaching over and tapping the next track button on my phone? If anything, it's more distracting because Bluetooth (at least for cars) is a complete nonfunctional clusterfuck of a spec that never, ever works right and when it breaks in new and exciting ways I end up more distracted than I would have been if I just tapped a button on my phone's screen.

I guess this invalidates what I've been used to for the last 4 years about using phone mapping. [1] I've always wondered what would happen if a police officer thought you were texting but you were actually using a GPS, or changing a song on your iPod (does it matter if it has cellular connection or not?) Presumably we would need to exclude dash-mounted or built-in GPS manipulation as well. This makes everything with phone use more consistent (and restrictive), which may be the right thing to do.

[1] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/12/illegal-a...

I was pulled over for this exact reason in CA. I went to court, showed cell phone logs that I had not made or received any calls or texts, and the case was dismissed. The judge said specifically that "I'm not convinced that using maps is any less dangerous than texting, but I have to rule as a matter of law that if you were not communicating with anyone, then it is not illegal." Apparently angry birds would have been okay too.

(note that this happened in 2012, before the ruling in this article)

They're not going to be able to legislate safe driving. Drivers are oblivious to the danger they wield with two-ton blocks of steel. It's not just distractions, it's a total lack of care.

Piling on more conditions and limitations on phone usage will create further contempt for these laws. Light-up road signs that threaten fines as consequence -- ignoring the dangerous consequence of distraction -- don't help.

Plus, it's something that the state can theoretically prove even if no one was there to witness the reckless driving. And even if there was a witness, witness testimony is almost comically unreliable.