People in Georgia who are concerned about the prevalence of distracted driving and the safety risks this behavior raises may have even more reason to be concerned in the future. As consumers’ reliance on technology seems only poised to grow, not wane, technology companies may well be building devices that all but encourage dangerous actions.
As reported recently by The Verge, there are rumors abounding that some new models of Apple smartphones may start to be produced with multiple wireless audio inputs. To make matters worse, there are people actively recommending that people could use one input for music and another for navigation purposes while driving. This would only add to the number of cognitive inputs that a driver would be trying to focus on at one time, further taking their attention away from the road.
It is known that some Android phones already have this capability, making the potential for competing devices to come out with similar features quite likely. Even for pedestrians or bicyclists, using these devices with two inputs at one time can put them at an increased risk of being hit in part because they may not hear oncoming traffic or other things they should be aware of.
Even the use of these or other electronic devices in hands-free mode is not completely safe. Driver distractions can be manual, cognitive or visual in nature and all three of these factors are known to create hazards and reduce a person’s ability to safely operate a motor vehicle.