Internet in your car?

Recently Chevrolet began touting the ability to seamlessly connect their vehicles to the internet using the built-in OnStar 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot.  That’s right, in the face of one the biggest threats to car safety, namely texting while driving, GM has decided that it would be a good idea to make it easier. The dangers of cell phone use while driving are incredible. At any given time throughout the day, approximately 660,000 drivers are attempting to use their phones while behind the wheel of an automobile. In 2011 at least 23% of all auto collisions involved cell phones.  Worse, more than 7 in 10 young adults feel confident that they can safely text while driving. It is no wonder that 11 teens die every day as a result of texting while driving.  Instead of encouraging bad behavior, GM and the rest of the auto industry should be exploring technologies that inhibit cellular use in a car.  One example is the use of location-based technology that detects texting while driving utilizing the GPS and Network Location services of Android mobile phones to estimate the speed that the cell phone is travelling at the time text messages are sent. There is no available a technology based solution for iPhones, due to Apple’s long standing policy of denying access to low level device interfaces.  As a result an iPhone app cannot block or auto respond to a text message while a person is driving.

 A relative simplistic solution is to jam the cellphones in the vehicle by transmitting a signal on the same frequency and at a high enough power that the two signals collide and cancel each other out.  Although, this technology is available, Federal law prohibits the operation of jamming devices in the United States. The FCC considers radio frequency transmitters that intentionally block, jam or interfere with authorized communications such as cellphone calls, GPS systems, Wi-Fi networks and first-responder communications illegal. Not only should the FCC revisit this prohibition in the case of auto vehicles, the Federal government should take the initiative in making cars safer by requiring that this jamming technology be installed in all vehicles, similar to what was done for seatbelts. It should come as no surprise that GM has made yet another bad decision with respect to vehicle safety in light of the $35-million fine levied by the the NHTSA against them, recalls and a plethora of safety issues. By all accounts, GM is trying to change their culture to meet quality and safety issues head on. The decision to put Wi-Fi in their vehicles is a clear indication that GM may not have yet turned the corner.