This seems troubling to me.
We know the LightSquared story: Huge Democrat donor and Obama supporter Philip Falcone is the CEO of LightSquared. LightSquared gets stimulus funds and a promise from the administration to open up new frequencies for LS to implement a new, nationwide wireless broadband network, presumably to create the infrastructure for a government-controlled wi-fi entitlement for the po'. The technology will use the frequencies used by GPS satellites to operate consumer devices, and the administration is prepared to tell consumers to pound sand. LightSquared spends hundreds of millions on moving forward with the implementation of the network, and consumers who've spent hundreds of dollars apiece on personal GPS devices wait for the government to f*** them.
But then the military steps in and says no way. We use those frequencies too, and our testing shows that the satellites will be overwhelmed and all GPS devices risk being rendered inoperable. Our navigation and missile guidance systems, surveillance.... LightSquared and the Obama regime's FCC have no choice but to back off, tail between their legs, Philip Falcone being royally screwed in the keister.
But now comes this report. Seems the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has issued new guidelines for in-vehicle electronic devices. They are attacking "dynamic, continually moving maps" as a distraction and safety hazard. They are suggesting that these devices should display only static or near static images, which would render them useless - or at least no more useful than a paper map.
Yet their claim of GPS devices causing driver distraction is based on - NO RESEARCH.
Is this a backdoor effort to render consumer GPS devices useless, thereby freeing up satellite bandwidth for LightSquared? Is this the first step in the government making consumer GPS devices illegal via fiat regulation, so that Obama's promise to Philip Falcone can be fulfilled, and the broadband entitlement implemented?
I put nothing past these people. Nothing.
Fed driver distraction guidelines make navigation unusable...Buried among equations for determining optimal display viewing angles and testing procedures is the recommendation that navigation devices should only show static or near-static images, which would essentially eliminate their usefulness.
Section V.5.b of the document titled Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for In-Vehicle Electronic Devices says that "Dynamic, continuously moving maps are not recommended."
The section, which deals with photographs or videos, says that static or near-static maps for the purpose of driving directions are acceptable. Near static is defined as being updated every few seconds.
Every current installed navigation system uses the car as a fixed point, and shows the map moving around it. NHTSA wants that changed so as to keep the map fixed. Even showing the position of the car moving on the map could be considered a dynamic image. The recommendation seems to suggest that the position of the car could only be updated every couple of seconds. Likewise, the map could be refreshed once the car has left the currently displayed area.
This recommendation would essentially make navigation unusable. The system could still give an auditory warning for the next turn, but without being able to glance down at the map and see how close the next street is would likely lead to a lot of missed turns and resultant frustration.
And although NHTSA includes the results of driver distraction studies in the guidelines, it has no testing directly related to using a navigation system. Instead there are more general conclusions against any tasks that require looking at a device for periods of more than 2 seconds, or a series of glances that amount to more than 12 seconds at at time....
More @ link....