Posted on 12/30/2016 11:52:25 AM PST by SES1066
These shockingly frivolous lawsuits irritate me. Apple should sue the reckless driver for being a parasite, and the victims of the crash should sue the driver for being both reckless and a moron.
My 47 Nash had a station changer in the floor board, unfortunately it used the same switch as the high beams switch.
Such technology exists, it is the responsibility of the user to seek it out and install it onto their device. Its called accountability. Its like suing Microsoft for not putting in enough RAM onto your machine so you can run Windows and Word together.
You can make anything foolproof but the fool will always prove he is a fool.
I'm not so much blaming them as pointing out the blatant irony. Here they are subject to every regulation under the sun in terms of safety and well aware that public service announcements constantly trumpet the need to focus on driving responsibilities. Yet, in the interest of selling cars and making people happy they introduce components likely to have the exact opposite effect. It's not unlike the government getting all in a tizzy about good health, while doing absolutely NOTHING to discourage homosexuality and abortion.
What if it’s a passenger using the iphone? How would the phone detect whether it was being used by the driver or the passenger?
It wouldn’t be fair to lock out ALL people who want to use an iphone in a traveling car!
Ed
If they win, the accident lawyers will now be able to sue for the civil equivalent of “pre-crime”.
= = = = = = = = = = =
Believe they have already done or at least tried that.
Seems the Black box was recovered from a Tractor Trailer involved in an accident that wasn’t ‘its’ fault and the lawyers showed from the BB that the truck was ‘speeding’ a few hours before and if not for that he wouldn’t have been at the ‘scene’ of the accident.. (or maybe going less than the speed limit - with the emphasis being on what time he got to the ‘scene’)
Definitely puts a different light on my criticism of parents and their responsibility - thank you for the update. My respects to the parents and their loss through no fault of their own. My disrespect to the BAD reportage of the story I quoted!
Agreed; but the one thing you have to understand here is that the lawyers want to get a big payday.
Apple is worth billions = big payday.
The at fault driver probably doesn’t have a pot to piss in = a standard bloodsucking leech payday.
Apple doesn't settle. . . not on these kind of lawsuits. Doing so only invites more such nuisance suits.
"One lawyer in town starves. Two lawyers in town and both get rich!"
My dad's '47, '49 and '53 Hudsons all had both high beam and station changer switches on the floor. They were separate but essentially identical foot buttons. If I recall correction, the high-beam button was the one on the right, closest to the clutch pedal. The each took a good amount of force to activate.
My 2014 Lincoln MKZ uses voice commands to change almost everything controllable in the car including radio tuning. For example I can change to SiriusXM Patriot channel merely by tapping the voice button on my steering wheel and saying "Patriot" and it will change from FM to SeriusXM and tune to channel 125. I can tune in to KFBK-FM by either saying "FM 93.1" or "FM KFBK" or if I am out of FM range I can try getting KFBK on the AM band by saying "AM KFBK" or "AM 1530." I can control the fan by saying "Environment Fan Speed faster." or "Slower" I can even change the interior ambient lighting color by voice control. Phone control is just as easy by voice. I don't have to remove my hands from the steering wheel or my eyes from the road.
In 1982 I was involved in a hit and run auto accident in which I was suddenly found myself being faced with a car coming straight at me in my lane. I was forced to do a sudden lane change to the right to avoid a head on collision at 40 MPH. The car that caused the accident by being going to wrong direction in my lane hit my car right behind my drivers' side door. I could understand why, during the accident, glass was flying at me from the left side of the car because of that car, but I could not understand why glass was flying at me from the RIGHT side of my car because I had not seen the Mercedes in the next lane that hit my car behind the front passenger door!
Both of those two cars bounced back after crushing my car between them and my car went forward and hit a telephone pole. The rescuers had to pry my car apart to extract me. I had a single cut on my right pinkie finger. . . but my back was wrenched around completely. The driver who had come into my lane and caused to accident had pulled his car out of there and driven away at high speed, leaving parts strewn on the road, never to be seen again. It was determined to have been an early 1960s American muscle car of some kind. The police did not even take down the names of the witnesses.
The lady who was driving the Mercedes sued me, first claiming that there original driver who had caused the accident was never there, despite all witness reports, and I was the actual cause of the accident and had merely had already existing damage to the left side of my car and had deliberately caused the accident with the intent to somehow defraud her because she drove a Mercedes, even though I had made no claim against her and was, because the real cause had left the scene, was claiming under my own uninsured motorist coverage. That fell apart because they could not explain how I could have driven there with my left rear axle bent at a 45º angle. So much for that legal theory.
She then revised her theory (or her attorney did) to, yes the original hit-and-run driver had caused the accident but "I was somehow still at fault for because I had been negligently in that place at that time!"
The judge asked the attorney if he was serious. He said he was. That pissed off the judge who then sanctioned him and summarily found on my part and awarded my insurance company all defense fees they had incurred on my behalf to be charged to her ATTORNEY!
Now that I think about it, I think the starter button was under the clutch. My uncle had a 34 ford that had the starter in the foot feed. Of course a lot of the older cars had the starter button on the dash like most of the new cars do today. Nothing new under the sun.
Voice control of everything is inevitable, just takes a lot of power which has to be handed off to the web but that won't be true forever.
Have to admit the automatic wipers are nice - have them on my Mercedes - still have to turn on the auto feature though (if you leave it on, you may not realize it until you hit the car wash and it isn't a good idea for them to be running with brushes/felt strips running across the car....so even automatic wipers can cause fools some problems.
How exactly is this technology supposed to determine whether it is the driver using the app or a passenger?
Good question and no good answer on my part. As a retired programmer and reasonably cognizant tech person, I draw a blank on how I would assemble an algorithm that would be able to distinguish, without error, the driver from someone sitting next to the driver! Perhaps a cooperative venture with the auto manufacturers would be needed, but that is the best I can envision.
Remember though, the curse of lawyers is that they practice on an utopian plain, mere reality is beneath them in their efforts. If everybody behaved perfectly, there would be no accidents, so their job is to affix blame on someone who is NOT PAYING THEM!
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