Looking at electonic maps is now illegal.

No, this is about using a device in a manner that is not hands-free.

That means, pull over to program it, make a call, or read the paper map. I don't see why people don't get this.

Why is multi-tasking so easy, until somehow, someone adds one more task and it all goes to chaos?

When driving it might become illegal to talk to the passengers in order to keep your full attention straight ahead

For many, that would be a good choice. They can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time.

With the Siri and Google Now services, and Samsung S-voice, you can simply touch the screen quickly, and then say "get directions to the nearest blah blah" and the phone will automatically pop up the new directions.

It does require touching the phone one time to activate the voice service, which apparently goes against this "hands free" rule.

Pretty ridiculous. If you can't touch the phone even once to give an audio command, then you shouldn't be driving, as you shouldn't be touch the climate controls, the radio, the turn signals, or even the light switch.

Or should people pull over every time they change the radio, change the climate control, turn on the lights, or do anything other than keeping the eyes locked ahead and two hands on the wheel?

I honestly believe there is a difference between activating and using and here you are definitely pushing the extreme definition of using. Touching a phone to activate a voice control is certainly not the same as using the touchscreen to dial a number or type in a text and I'm certain the courts would agree. Not-so-common sense has a lot to do with how the ruling would be interpreted. In this specific case the judge ruled that even though the phone was being used as a navigation device at the time, the driver was impaired because it was in his hand and not fixed to a mount that didn't require him to handle the phone.

This case seems to largely be about the hands-free aspect. It actually looks like a fairly narrow ruling; I would not read much into it.

Laws will always be made and applied to large groups of people; however, most would agree that some drivers are quite unsafe if there is simply a passenger. Laws don't treat people differently simply because they are better or worse at managing multiple possible distractions.

I agree. If the phone were mounted on the dash and the driver were to refer to the map, it wouldn't matter. Issue seems to be holding the map and taking one's eyes off the road for seconds at a time.

Here's a quote from the judge in the case:

As the guy who filed the case said, this expands the law prohibiting talking on a handheld phone and texting to include all functions where you have to touch the phone.

It used to be OK to call a number on the phone and talk with handsfree.

Now, at least in Fresno county that is illegal.

All these laws about what you can use while you are just more excuses for doing what governments want to do and that is take your money from you. It's time to elect lawmakers who won't vote for these types of laws.

BTW, when the guy went to the court of appeals he took a paper map with him as an example of something that is maybe legal but more distracting to use while driving.

The court wasn't impressed. He lost.

It's possible in Fresno county you can't look at *any* map while driving.

This was a a very bad deal. Wish he hadn't done any of this. It's not good having bad caselaw created.

If your eyes are not on the road, it's distracted driving. Period. Full stop.

You are in no way entitled to endanger other people. It's a no-brainer. Sadly, the lack of critical thinking skills in society is rapidly decreasing.

Agreed.

I have no problem with this. Distracted driving is a problem everywhere.

Fine, then use your judgment and don't be distracted when driving.

But it shouldn't become a law. The fact that something is right thing to do, shouldn't translate into making the opposite a violation of the law.

True, but if the GPS or phone is on the mount, you can touch it without looking at it. For voice-capable units it's enough to touch them in order to initiate them.

In normal course of using GPS, there are numerous functions that do require interacting with it even without changing the directions: bypass; finding next gas station; initiating phone call (for Bluetooth-enabled models); etc etc. If this ruling stands, GPS makers will have to drop all those functions. Imagine that.

Also, I wonder, in this case, did the state have the proof that the driver was actually interacting with the phone, such as entering new address etc.? or merely having the phone with the directions nearby was enough?

Just came back from a trip to LA and Phoenix where my Prius broke down and instead of putting a lot of money to repair I bought a new one.
My new Prius came with built in GPS system which is mounted below the dash so I would have to look down to see where I am or program it.
The question is whether this is more of a built in distraction than a handheld phone in front of your face.
I will keep my Garmin for the built in has limitations to information put in.

That is definitely dumb, especially if you use a cradle for your phone similar to one like a gps unit uses.

Why do drivers insist on turning their heads completely away from the road to talk to the passenger. The person beside you should still be able to hear you, even when you look ahead.

At 60 mph, the 3-4 seconds that your eyes are off the road,translates to about 250-350 feet, that you have no idea what the traffic is doing in front of you.

Your passenger should be able to understand that you're not beung rude.

Some folks immediately jump on the bandwagon about "Rights", whenever a new law is passed that restricts their "Freedom of Choice" - read "Take the risk".

I remember in 1966 that all American cars had to come from the factory with seat belts (no shoulder strap then). I remember all the hooplah about how they would cause more injuries than they prevented (and some still believe that - no matter what the facts are). My mother bought a 66 Chevelle that year and we used them from the gitgo. We figured that if Richard Petty wore one, we could too. In 67 I T-boned a car making a left turn from the right-hand lane to cross the median on I-64 because they missed their exit. Oh yeah, no signal either. I hit her at 55 mph. My friend & I had or belts on and I'm glad we did, because we both probably would have kissed the windshield. The car was $47 dollars shy of being totaled. Seatbelts were not the "Law" then. A rear passenger in the other car (66 Ford galaxy) wasn't wearing her belt and had severe back injuries.

I started driving motorcycles in 1964. No helmet required then. When I bought a M/C in 69 I started wearing a helmet (still not required in VA then). I had just lost a friend that wrecked his Harley @ 25 mph. He landed on his head right on the RR track rail. He might have survived if the helmet had been on his head, rather than hanging from the handlebar.

It seems that just about all the fatalities you read about today seem to be when people get "Ejected" from the vehicle from not wearing their seatbelt. Also, states that have no helmet laws seem to have a lot of fatalities caused by "Head Trauma" when compared to states with helmet laws.

Now, I know some of these new laws are "Borderline" and folks think that it's their right to take the risk. But every time one of thes folks loses their life or suffers extremely severe injuries - our insurance rates go up. Yep, it's not just the number of accidents, the cost (read damages, medical bills and of course LAW SUITS) of those accidents that jacks up the rates.

Hate to sound a little callous about it, but it's a fact that you cannot ignore. If a law will reduce accidents/injuries/fatalities, then it's probably a good thing. But I do agree that the government can go too far to protect us from ourselves sometimes and upper courts have a tendency to "make" law, rather than interpret law and that's not good at all.

Your standards are too low.
Standards for freedom, government intervention in our lives is a huge problem IMHO.

When you give your freedoms away and government regulations encroach on your life, you must fight back.

Where does the nanny state end?

Seatbelts, then motorcycle helmets, how long before the government demands we all wear steel toed shoes?

Remember, people sometimes drop things on their foot, the government should protect us. Steel toed shoes for everyone, all the time. A $356 fine if you are caught outside the shower without steel toed shoes.

is it still OK to touch the car radio, or is that illegal too in Amerika?

One should first consider how this land was settled.
At the beginning there were only several hundred people and no need for laws governing how they lived except religious restrictions.
Today we have over 300 million people occupying the same amount of territory so there must be controls.
People who go to emergency hospitals without insurance cost the rest of us because of it.
If a motorcyclist refuses to wear a helmet then I should also have the right to not pay for his/her hospital stay for it was a personal choice.
The question here is about how much should the government control our lives and I can only answer by saying that the more people will require more regulation to make sure every one has some rights.

imho the bottom line is act in a safe way when driving. For example, have you ever seen those shows on tv where someone gets busted with felony possession while riding a bike? You cannot possess illicit drugs while riding a bike, but one has to be an idiot to get caught. Same thing, to get caught looking at a map illegally while driving, is bad luck. If it happens, just pay the fine, man up so to speak.

You are making the assumption that it's government's job to promote good practices. Why should the government even be in this picture?

It is my responsibility to care about my own and my family's well-being - not the government's. The same goes for the familiar argument about the increased insurance costs for everyone - let the (private) insurance company worry about this.

There's no question that conversing while driving increases the error and accident rate. In-car conversation is not going to be outlawed though.

Steevo, you're going too black-and-white here. It's not like one court decision like this establishes a new legal standard where yesterday it was legal, now it's not, and cops everywhere are enforcing it based on that one case. No, not going to happen. Frankly technology is likely to solve this faster in the context of robot-driven vehicles than new laws and enforcement.

While there will continue to be a growing trend of new laws passed to try and get a handle on distracted driving, it's going to be a slow trickle, not throwing a switch where suddenly all you can do in the car is drive.

I understand your concern about the nanny state, Steevo, but I do think a combination of education and laws are needed for the worst practices such as texting while driving, which half of all adults admit to doing at least once now. Both education and enforcement are needed; one without the other will not be enough. Regulation will not make the world a safe, risk-free place, but it can help.

Hey guys and gals, Just had a thought, If you need to read a map pull over to the side of the road.

I wonder if you are equally concerned about your right not to pay for the government's wars, without which everybody in this country might have free medical care to begin with.

When the advocates of the nanny state bring up the argument "everybody has to pay for this bad habit of the few, so let's outlaw it" (Obamacare being arguably the last one) - you can't stop wondering about their selectivity and ability to concentrate on the issues that don't make 0.1% of the gross total.

I thought that kurzemnieks had a good point about the motorcyclist's choices imposing costs upon society but you have a good point about the Iraq and Afghanistan sapping funds that might have been used for other purposes.

I was just wondering whether you had any concrete ideas about how (or if) society should share the costs of people like the motorcyclist kurzemnieks spoke of. Contrary to the problem of future generations paying for the wars, a small example sometimes serves to bring things into focus.

How do the "rights" of the various parties play out? Or, are "rights" even part of the discussion? I admit I am conflicted about various solutions but what would be the right thing to do?

I agree with pulling over to access the touch screen

The same idiots who still do not require seat belts on school buses and allow 40 ton SEMI drivers gab on their CB radios with mike in hand.
10-4 Good Buddy..... see you on the flip side.

Soon we won't be able to use the touchscreens in our cars to change the radio stations.

If we don't speak up this option will be taken away.

Oh well. Eyes look straight on the road.

I took a university sponsored bus trip to basketball game 110 miles away. As I sat by the window on the right side of the bus, I could see in the cab of all the semi trucks we passed. In that short distance I counted 11 drivers with a cell phone in their hands (it beats watching empty corn fields). This to me is more dangerous than a CB radio for you do not have to look at a microphone to use it.
As for war, only Congress can declare it so if one has a beef with that then the next election vote against your congressman who voted for it. Majority rules so one cannot help but pay for it.
As for helmets, it is a personal thing and everyone pays for his/her stupidity when being admitted to the hospital because of a crash.
I like Obama Care because it forces people to be insured and not be a burden on the public. Its called "Being Responsible by force".
As for cell phone use as GPS, I think that whenever there is a crash, the police officer should have the right to look at that phone to see if it was in use at that time and then write up a ticket with a hefty fine if it wasn't in a cradle.

My car radio and built in GPS can be controlled from the steering wheel and voice so unless there is a reason to look at the map, I do not have to take my eyes off the road. It is called progress.