GPS Crackdown You Will be Ticketed While Driving

If you sell Aftermarket Car Accessories then you may see some sales increase on voice activated GPS Systems. So you knew it would happen at some point. They did it with cell phones now go after the GPS.

We read this  By ROB JENNINGS • STAFF WRITER at DAILYRECORD.COM

A cell phone has little in common with a global positioning system mapping device, other than both have the potential for driver distraction. The hand-held cell phone ban, which also prohibits text-messaging, took effect in March 2008. Now one lawmaker wants to expand the law to prohibit manual operation of GPS devices. Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, a Democrat from Jersey City, introduced a bill June 8 specifying that only a voice-activated GPS may be programmed while driving. Violators would face the same $100 fine as anyone caught text-messaging or using a hand-held cell phone. It was only a matter of time before someone proposed expanding the cell phone law to encompass another popular, high-tech device. Smith, the undersheriff of Hudson County, could not be reached Friday about his bill. To be sure, manually programming a GPS unit from behind the wheel — the voice-activated model tends to be more expensive — is not a good idea. AAA in New Jersey spokeswoman Michele Mount noted that the GPS instruction manuals urge motorists to avoid programming while driving.

“I think it would be too hazardous to program it while you’re driving,” said Mike Baldini of Boonton Township, who bought a $150 GPS unit last year that he rarely uses. Baldini described the protracted process involved in generating a GPS-guided route from point A to point B.

“You touch a couple of buttons. Then you get to a menu. Then it asks the town you want. Then you find the street (and) it goes to the street number. Then it asks if you want to take toll roads, or highways, or the least amount of highways,” Baldini said.

Wow, that seems like a lot to do while monitoring traffic flow and exit signs. Still, is a GPS device necessarily more distracting than a satellite radio box featuring hundreds of stations and streaming all the major league baseball scores on a tiny screen?

Maybe, maybe not. But, to our knowledge, no one is proposing a ban on manually operating satellite radio. Perhaps satellite radio will be next, which is the fundamental problem with the current piecemeal approach to distracted driving. Simply put, lawmakers will never be able to keep up with all the distractions and the process is fraught with subjectivity. “What’s next, iPods?” Mount mused.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who chairs the transportation committee, favors a broader approach to combating distracted driving. “You could literally do a statute banning grooming, eating, changing the DVD, changing the CD — the list goes on and on. But is this really how we want to proceed,” Wisniewski said. Wisniewski proposed a catch-all ban on distracted driving in 2006. His bill, which was overshadowed by the ultimately successful cell phone ban, would have banned drivers “from engaging in any activity not related to the operation of the vehicle in a manner that interferes with the safe operation of the vehicle,” according to the bill summary. Critics of Wisniewski’s measure argued that it would overlap with the careless driving law. He argued, though, that police might hesitate in assessing careless driving — a two-point offense — to a motorist caught applying their makeup, for example. Wisniewski’s bill proscribed a $100 fine, but no license points. Regardless of the law, common sense should apply.

“No one should be programming their GPS device while their car is moving at 60 miles per hour,” Wisniewski said.