Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Distracting News: .car
byThere is Internet access at work, and Internet access at home. And thanks to WiFi, it seems like the Web is now available in an ever-increasing list of locations. However, there is one place many people spend a great deal of time where Web access is severely limited: a person’s vehicle. This is a big deal because according to an Arbitron study a few years ago, the average American spends 14 percent of waking hours in a car (see pdf of Arbitron study here).
Now a company called ATX (news release) would like to change all that by bringing Web access to your car’s dashboard. They are even proposing a new top-level domain (.car) to facilitate that process. Yikes, I see one more huge distraction looming for already distracted drivers.
Presently, some people use smart phones in the car to access Web information, but ATX and others are talking about a sizable screen (see Wired story) square in the middle of a car’s dashboard. A CBS story highlights a government study that shows 80 percent of all crashes are caused by distracted or drowsy drivers. While providing Internet access in a vehicle is a boon to passengers who must endure time on the road, it adds to a long list of distractions — cell phones, texting, DVD players, satellite radio, navigation systems, applying make-up — potentially diverting a driver’s eyes from the road ahead.
More and more states are enacting distracted driver laws, but these laws are difficult to enforce. It’s a serious challenge that affects all drivers on the road. As the distractions available continue to grow, so do the potential dangers. It appears something needs to be done before American roadways become more akin to running a gauntlet.
