The U.S. Department of Transportation, in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has issued a set of optional guidelines to help steer automakers to make cars safer. Proposed by U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, the optional guidelines would help automakers create a streamlined process for nonessential electronics to function while a car is moving as not to create more problems on the road.
“Distracted driving is a dangerous and deadly habit on America’s roadways—that’s why I’ve made it a priority to encourage people to stay focused behind the wheel,” LaHood says in a statement. “These guidelines are a major step forward in identifying real solutions to tackle the issue of distracted driving for drivers of all ages.”
Among Phase 1 of the three-phase process of recommendations would be:
- Reducing the time it takes to operate devices
- Limit operation of devices to one hand only
- Limit the time eyes spend away from the road to two seconds or less
- Limit unnecessary visual information from the driver’s view
- Limit the number of inputs needed to operate devices
The recommendations would also block devices such as navigation systems from having addresses manually put into them while the car is moving, as well as limit the operation of:
- Text messaging
- Internet browsing
- Social media use
- 10-digit phone dialing
- Display more than 30 characters of text unrelated to driving
Automotive.com’s take: While driving should focus on the process of operating a car, we recognize that cars must have technology that caters to what their drivers want. Those drivers want in-car entertainment and connectivity to the world around them. That’s not going away anytime soon. With that in mind, more affordable, smoother voice-recognition technology should be implemented into this plan, as we’re not going to give up our navigation systems or social media devices. This process should welcome integration—not limit technologies as a nanny.
Source: U.S. DOT
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