Should We Allow Internet in Cars?

Old Man Ashford has a particularly strange version of freedom. I don't recall ever “voluntarily submitting” to speed limits. He also misses the point when he suggests that we would just be relying on the police to deal with this problem. What about insurance?

Anyone who has ever gotten home owners (or renters) insurance, knows that insurance companies give discounts for safety features, like having a sprinkler system or a sophisticated fire/security system that will call the fire department or police if something happens. As these technologies start to roll out in the marketplace, it's a pretty safe bet that insurance companies will evaluate the technology in the car when deciding how much to charge in insurance premiums. That in turn creates a powerful incentive for automobile manufacturers to include “safety by design” in their products. For instance, we would expect an insurance company to charge a much lower premium for a car whose onboard computer can both talk to the driver and understand the drivers commands in such a way that the driver doesn't have to ever look at a screen (or perhaps even goes one step farther and dims or adjust the screen while the car is moving so that the driver can't see it, but perhaps the person in the passenger seat still can) than for a car whose computer requires the driver's eyes or figures to use. In fact, why would any insurance company right policy for a car whose onboard computer actually does allow them to play World of Warcraft while driving?

The point is that here, as in any market, it's not just a question of individual consumers being helpless to overcome their own worst impulses. As I've noted in the case of texting while driving, markets create incentives for us to act responsibly, including for us to bind our future selves with technology that denies us the “freedom” do certain things that probably aren't good for us (or other drivers on the road).

But the critical advantage of relying on technological empowerment (including self-control functionalities) is that it allows us to use technology smartly, rather than simply banning it outright. He also avoids the dangerous precedent of the government rushing to ban technologies simply because of the potential for abuse, rather than looking to innovation to address those concerns.

Laws can create incentives too. Making it easier to hold drivers and manufacturers accountable for unsafe practices and designs will create incentives for safety features and disincentivize dangerous ones. A cyclist killed or maimed by a driver of one of these Internet cars may prefer to be alive and unhurt rather than able to sue. But that may be enough to end practices that are “unsafe at any Mbps.”

I think we need to get over our idea that the Internet = webpages. I'm finding this with my Droid already. My radio? Pandora for music, Podcasts for talk radio and news . My map? Google Navigation. My phone? hands-free.

I'm sure this same overreaction occurred when they introduced car radios back in the day. Bad drivers should be punished for being bad drivers. You can't legislate against stupidity.

In general, I would probably tend to favor restrictions on non-navigational or non-instrumental display devices being within view of the driver.

Agree with Eric. The Internet has a lot of great applications in cars…I mean, I don't want drivers checking out Youtube on the road, but I like the idea of Pandora in the car, maybe free turn-by-turn directions with real-time traffic and weather updates, etc.