Stopping Texting While Driving - Unclear On The Concept

RIM comes up with a solution which they have now patented.

Every now and then something comes along which makes you wonder if the person behind it was unclear on the concept and the latest one comes care of RIM, the makers of the famous Blackberry phones. As if they did not have enough troubles already, they have now been granted a patent to enable CAPTCHA when doing texting while the phone is moving faster than 3 mph. The intent is to encourage people to stop texting while driving, but this is where the unclear on concept comes into play.

In the patent granted to RIM this week, they now have a patent which displays CAPTCHA in the form of a picture which the person has to look at and type in the answer to a statement being asked of them. In this case above, the expected answer would be "dog". We are assuming that upper and lower case does not matter. The intent is to make it much more difficult for the person doing the texting. There are various levels of the pictures and answers which are displayed based on the speed which the phone is moving at.

This works by using built in GPS to measure how fast the phone is moving. If one is on a train, you would have to solve the CAPTCHA to text which would be a real pain since you are a passenger. But the main design of this is for someone who is driving a car, not a passenger. Though the passenger in a car would be subjected to the same CAPTCHA display and puzzle solution. There is nothing to stop the driver from trying to do this anyway.

At speeds from 3 - 6 mph up to 124 - 149 mph, the CAPTCHA requirement would come into play and require a solution to be entered to be able to text. Why they put an upper end on the speed at which the phone is traveling is anyone's guess. I see this as another unclear on the concept. Do you see it the same way?

RIM has been looking at ways to reduce texting while driving for safety reasons, but this one misses the mark by a lot. People who want to text are going to do it while driving unless the phone is disabled. Adding another layer of complexity to texting is going to be seen as a challenge and people are going to do it anyway. Whether RIM implements this or not is unknown, but we can hope that they do not as it is not going to change the behavior of a majority of people.

Here in California, people are prohibited from texting while driving, but they do it anyway. It is often hard to see what they are doing. On the other hand, it is illegal in California to hold your phone to your ear while driving, but people continue to do it anyway. And the high number of people doing it is very visible as you drive around. If they are not going to stop holding their phone to their ear to talk while driving, what makes anyone think they are going to stop texting while driving because of the addition of CAPTCHA to be able to text while driving?

This is another one of those unclear on the concept stories.