Jamming Device Prevents Driver's Phone From Working If Car Is In Motion

Considering I commute about a 90 mile round trip daily to work, along with other driving, I've seen many drivers that can't talk and drive at the same time. There focus switches from driving to their conversations. On top of that, they all have the phone plastered to their ear instead of using a headset. Then those that ignore the law and text or email while driving. For those, I'm all for something like this. Personally, I put my phone in a cradle, use a bluetooth headset, and have Google Maps or Navigator running on the display.

Jamming Device Prevents Driver's Phone From Working If Car Is In Motion

via Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now by Colin Lecher on 7/9/12

Distracted Driving Ryan Harvey via Flickr

Passengers can chatter as normal

Texting while driving is enough of a problem that it's been pinned as more dangerous than drunk driving, so it was only a matter of time before we started to see technology better able to shut it down. Now on that list: researchers have found a way to detect when a phone is being used in a moving car, then jam it.

Engineers from the Anna University of Technology in Chennai, India, invented the device, which uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to determine if a car is moving and the driver is using a phone. If it is, it uses a mobile jammer to shut down the driver's phone. And that's just the driver's phone--the technology allows the passengers complete access to their phones, leaving them free to call their friends and laugh at the driver who just lost his connection.

We've seen similar technology before, but the question of privacy still lingers: there's a debate to be had on making these sorts of devices standard government-issue in vehicles.

[Smithsonian]