A Breathalyzer For Your Cell Phone? Meet The Textalyzer
Other than the hazards of not clearly seeing objects behind you where a Rear View Camera is clearly the solution, distracted driving is a very serious problem. A breathalyzer for your cell phone could be part of the solution.
New York police could soon by using textalyzer phone scanners that act as a breathalyzer for your cell phone, allowing them to quickly see if a phone was used at the time of an accident while also keeping content private.
Assembly assistant Speaker Felix Ortiz and New York Senator Terrence Murphy have partnered with awareness group Distracted Operators Risk Casualties to propose the bill against distracted driving.
DORCs co-founder Ben Liberman lost his son Evan in a collision caused by a distracted driver. The new law would be known as “Evan’s Law.” Records of the driver’s phone in the crash that killed Evan were only retrieved after Liberman’s own civil suit. The records indicated that the driver was texting while driving leading up to the crash. Liberman wants to make it easier to retrieve these records.
The textalyzer would be used at the accident site, immediately after the accident, just like a breathalyzer. It would allow officers to determine if a phone was used around the time for the crash. All contacts, conversations, photos and other phone information would be kept private. A warrant would still be required to retrieve this information if it is determined that the cell phone was used. Under the bill the driver would lose their license for a year if they refused to submit their phone to the test.
Opponents of the bill say it invades privacy and the new technology just raises questions. Will the technology mistake a notification or missed call as content? What is distracted driver content? How safe is the personal information? Cellebrite, a subsidiary of Japan’s Sun Corporation, already has the textalyzer technology, but other companies could put in bids for their devices if Evan’s Law passes.
According to the Centers for Disease control an average of 27 people are killed by drunk drivers in America every day, while 8 are killed by distracted drivers. However, this number could be inaccurate because currently there is no protocol to determine if a phone was used at the time of the accident.
"When people were held accountable for drunk driving, that's when positive change occurred. It's time to recognize that distracted driving is a similar impairment, and should be dealt with in a similar fashion. This is a way to address people who are causing damage," Lieberman in a press release.
According to the US Department of Transportation, At any given daylight moment across America, approximately 660,000 drivers are using cell phones or manipulating electronic devices while driving, a number that has held steady since 2010.
