Don’t Game & Drive; It May Be Illegal Soon (Or Is It Already Illegal?)
By William on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 12:40 PM PST In Gamer Life
Our government in it’s infinite wisdom seems to spend an incredible amount of time working on legislation that’s simply a waste of time. Numerous states are proposing legislation to outlaw playing portable video games and electronics while driving. Sure, that makes a lot of sense, but is it really necessary legislation? It seems to me that they are just stacking laws on top of laws. It’s already illegal to “drive while distracted” in most states. Don’t the laws in place already cover the entire topic? I’m not really sure what to think about this, but I guess it’s the “in” thing right now in politics to pass video game specific laws. After reading this, my opinion that our government simply wastes more time than they spend doing something productive has strengthened.
From Game Politics: Proposed bills in 12 states, including New York and Pennsylvania, would forbid drivers from playing video games or using their computers and fax machines.
The legislation is a natural progression from outlawing the use of hand-held cell phones by drivers… The intent of the legislation… is to cut down on the distractions that drivers create for themselves when operating electronic devices…
The New York Senate… unanimously passed a bill outlawing such electronics just before adjourning. The Senate bill, S634-C, has been referred to the Assembly Codes Committee…
Believe it or not, this law is kinda required. I once read an artical about a guy that called for tech support on the road. he was using his laptop and talking to tech support… while driving. The tech support guy apparently hung up on him.
I agree that this law is required. The problem with “driving with undue care and attention” laws is that everyone thinks the law doesn’t apply to them. “I can talk on the phone and pay attention to my driving at the same time!”, bleat most people, while they are drifting all over the road trying to dial their phones. While I agree in principle that we don’t need these specific laws, they don’t have the kind of subjectivity that “distracted driving” does, thus they are easier to prove and get convictions. I just can’t imagine what goes through someone’s mind when they think they can pilot a 6000 pound SUV through traffic and play a video game at the same time.
“Proposed bills in 12 states, including New York and Pennsylvania, would forbid drivers from playing video games or using their computers and fax machines.”
Such a broadly written prohibition is a bad idea. For example it could (and likely will) be used to issue citations to drivers who use their GPS computers and notebook computers running GPS software while driving. If a cop stops a driver and sees a notebook computer in the adjacent seat or a dashboard GPS computer, he will very likely issue a citation even if the driver protests that it wasn’t being actively used or a distraction.
Just wondering what the policemen are supposed to do now. It is my understanding that the police force uses CB radios to communicate and the onboard laptops that you see in movies could also server as a distraction…are the policemen also supposed to pull over to call in a crime on the CB or are they supposed to pull over to check out some information on the local police network?
Ah, the irony…
I’ve often wondered why police vehicles get away with speeding when they are not responding to an emergency. The answer is usually something along the lines of “they have special training that allows them to do so safely.” I’m guessing a similar answer applies in this case.