Illinois Could Become the First State to Ban Drivers From Wearing Smart Glasses

[highplainsdem]

Source: Gizmodo

A bill in Illinois has been passed and is now awaiting final approval by Gov. JB Pritzker that would make it illegal to use smart glasses while driving, effectively expanding the definition of “electronic device” under the law. If approved, Illinois would be the first state to expressly ban the use of smart glasses while driving. Other states, such as New York, have proposed prohibiting the use of “head-mounted portable electronic devices” while operating a vehicle, but none of those proposals have even reached a House or Senate floor.

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Fines for violating the law start at $75 and increase to $150 for repeat offenses. Anyone involved in a serious crash while wearing smart glasses could face misdemeanor or felony charges.

On the one hand, the move feels like a no-brainer, since slapping a screen on your eyeballs is the definition of distracted driving. And given the direction some companies that sell smart glasses are headed, a no-brainer law like this could be critical.

Amazon, for example, is actively developing smart glasses that would superimpose navigation onto the eyes of its drivers as they drive. Even the Meta Ray-Ban Display has a navigation feature, and though Meta strongly suggests that you don’t use it in a vehicle, it also doesn’t stop you from doing so.

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Read more: https://gizmodo.com/illinois-could-become-the-first-state-to-ban-drivers-from-wearing-smart-glasses-2000772999

[eggplant]

1. And heads up displays?

These exist already and serve the same purposes.

I'm not advocating for the use of smart glasses while driving, or even smart glasses at all. I think they are a terrible idea. But if the problem is the distraction, then ban all of it.

[Igel]

16. An Internet-ready heads-up display.

Yeah, not a distraction, driving at 70 on the freeway while logged in to OnlyFans.

Or watching some race-car video game play-through on Youtube.

[eggplant]

18. But flying down the road with a cigarette in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other is just fine.

I hate that smart glasses were ever invented and that we even have to have this conversation.

[ToxMarz]

2. I can see how they can pull you over if your holding a phone in your hand

Are they going to pull everyone wearing glasses over and inspect them?

[Igel]

17. Probably not.

But if you're pulled over for some other violation and they're on your face, they're not (so far) that hard to not notice if you're looking for them.

College Board is really big into avoiding that kind of cheating so every SAT proctor is trained to be effing paranoid when it comes to student 'aberrant' behavior--whether it's fiddling with a pendant or messing with glasses.

Just like teachers have found vapes that look like USB drives or other fairly innocuous things. So my school's Chromebooks have the USB ports disabled.

(Students still find things. Like Chrome has a nifty resident app for taking screen shots of snips. And now Google Lens is part-and-parcel of that app, and when Google Lens accesses AI to analyze, say, a test question and you've used a block list, you know, that Internet access event isn't picked up by the blocking software. Gee. Thanks.)

[purr-rat beauty]

3. How about black tint windshields?

How do people drive at night wirh those?

[skypilot]

11. I hate tinted car windows...

...for another reason. As a pedestrian I often need to see the driver when I'm about to cross the street so that I can determine if they see ME. So many drivers pulling onto a cross street will look only in the direction where they expect to see a car coming and will not look in the other direction to see if there is a pedestrian coming. I need to be able to tell if the driver sees me and I can't do that with those damned windows.

[Vinca]

4. At the same time, new cars have a screen you have to look at in order to operate the car. It's nuts.

They ban cellphone use, now smart glasses, but you can run off the road and crash into a tree trying to turn on the windshield wipers.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. I would like to ask my glasses ...

... hey Specs, how do I turn on the windshield wipers? And then the glasses would highlight the control.

I bought an electric car. What I don't know about operating it could fill a book. It has a dazzling array of meaningless controls on the screen.

[FakeNoose]

13. I bet they'll be showing ads on that screen in a heartbeat

... because they don't make enough money selling their cars already.

[mdbl]

5. The real problem is the dumb people wearing them

[reACTIONary]

6. This seems to be a form of "heads up" display....

A heads up display can reduce distraction because it allows a lot more situational awareness than looking down, for instance, at the speed or gas gauge. Its not a no brainner for me.

[Matthew28]

7. I wish

The war on tech and science would just stop. Let people use glasses to navigate around.

[cstanleytech]

9. Probably in another twenty or thirty years there will be artificial vision to help those blind or going blind.

So will those be banned as well?

[Polybius]

15. By then, self-driving cars may be mandatory

If the tech is good enough, no need for humans to drive.

[Karasu]

10. These should be banned PERIOD. Nothing but a gift for stalkers, pedos, and the surveillance state. There are so

many negatives to these fucking things (especially with AI being completely fucking unregulated) that it shouldn't even be a conversation.

[twodogsbarking]

12. Does anyone know anyone who knows how to convert a WW2 M4 Sherman tank to a passenger car?

[Polybius]

14. Dumb proposal

Not all smart glasses have a display. My Ray-Ban Meta's Gen 1 don't. I won't stop wearing them in NY.