Legality/Morality of Watching TV While Driving?

Might as well drink and drive, too.

TV in the front seat for the driver= bad idea.

 

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Cool poll Jack66! This should be interesting.
I placed my vote.
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One of my fraternity brothers, back in the day, put in a touch screen and a computer in his car... It would be dubbed the deathmobile on all roadtrips from there on out due to the swerving from lane to lane as the entire car watched a movie...

 

And soon we'll get to fight over the remote in the car, too?

 

I was going to make a reference to having your very own drive in theater anywhere, anytime.

 

Ya know, if it was just you and your passengers who would get killed or hurt in the event that the TV is enough distraction to cause an accident, then I would just consider it as darwinism. But, you can kill other people with your vehicle too.

 

If you're going to title the poll "legality/morality", then why not offer exactly those options?

1. both legal and moral
2. legal but immoral
3. illegal but moral
4. illegal and immoral

FWIW, I know that it is actively illegal in some states (California being included; I looked through the Kentucky vehicle codes, but couldn't find anything relevant offhand).

This is a handy collection: Digital Driver | Road Rules

I personally also believe it is immoral: you are risking others' safety for your own unnecessary pleasure. Not a good ethical tradeoff in my book.

But hey, go ahead and install it -- you're an American, dammit, and entitlement is our middle name!

Let us know when you get into your first accident. I look forward to saying "I told you so".

 

i have live TV on my cellphone now... have only been tempted to catch something a few times. mostly the news... i mostly listen anyway...just because its on cellphone DOES NOT mean its commercial free... plenty of them still...

 

If it were a matter of Mr. TV putting just his own life at risk, I'd have no problem with the idea - in fact, I'd encourage it. However, since Mr. TV wants the risk the lives of me and everyone else on the highway, I have a real problem with this type of irresponsible behavior.

On the upside, at least he won't miss Oprah anymore.

... Brad

 

I read a tip from somebody on this website which allowed me to almost completely eliminate the blindspots in my car.

-Lean all the way to the left, such that your head is touching the driver's side window. Adjust the left mirror so that you can just barely see the side of your car in it.
-Lean all the way to the right and adjust the right side mirror so that you can barely the see your car.

Now, vehicles on the road should always be visible to you in one of your three mirrors, even when you're sitting in your normal driving position

 

I find that when I have a video playing on my car PC its just like having the navigation screen on. I only glance at it once in a while just to see whats going on. Its really not a distraction. Watching porn on the other hand is a BIG distraction. Please don't watch porn and drive.

Same way with my cell phone. I rarely use my phone and when I do use it while driving ( which is extremely rare ) I can talk on my cell phone and drive at the same time to. Holding the cell, using my turn signal, looking at all my mirrors, checking my blind spots, seeing what the other cars are doing in front and behind me, trying to time the lights, pulse and glide. Its really not that hard when your focused.

 

if you did it right, other than the somewhat restricted rear view, you should not have any blindspots

 

I doubt that there is a person posting here who hasn't had an experience dealing with a distracted driver. There are many posters on the other thread who brag about their multitasking abilities. Are they absolutely certain they have never cut another driver off because they weren't paying attention to the road?

I can see it now. You are in traffic during rush hour. You are a sports fan who missed the end of the big game last night. The morning news does a replay of the potential winning shot in the last 10 seconds of the game. Are you going to be watching the road or the TV when the guy in front of you slams on his brakes? Will that half second delay in hitting your brakes mean the difference between you getting to work safely or having an accident?

Don't we have enough distractions while we are driving without adding to them? How do we decide who can and who can't watch TV while they are driving? Do you have to take a test to see if you can multitask? How many elderly people will try to watch TV and drive just because they can?

It's not that I don't think it can be done, I just think it opens up a whole bunch of problems that need to be considered.

As far as TV in a non-moving car- cool if you want to do it. I can think of more comfortable places to watch TV.