For years, we've discussed the problematic nature of "distracted driving" laws that seek to outlaw things like talking on your phone or texting while driving. It is not that we don't think these behaviors are dangerous. It seems clear that those activities can take one's attention away from driving and potentially increase the likelihood of an accident by a significant amount. However, the laws are often broad and inconsistent -- and, worse, they can have serious unintended consequences. As we've noted there are lots and lots of things that can distract a driver which are still considered perfectly legal, such as changing the radio station, talking to passengers, eating, etc. Trying to ban each and every distraction one by one is a ridiculous and impossible task. In fact, studies have suggested that bad distracted drivers will often just find a different distraction to occupy their time. And, thanks to these laws, those drivers are often still texting while driving, but are simply holding their phones even lower, taking their eyes further off the road, so as to avoid detection... actually making the roads more dangerous. The real answer is to focus on stopping bad driving, not trying to call out specific activities.

Anyway, all of that is preamble to a new court ruling in California, found by Orin Kerr, saying that using a mobile phone to check a mapping/GPS program violates the state's law against distracted driving. The driver had argued that the laws are about talking on a phone and/or texting/surfing the internet, but that clearly using a mapping program should be allowed. The court disagreed, even as it acknowledged some of the oddities of what that meant, and said it's really the job of the state lawmakers to figure out what they want to do.

The ruling doesn't totally rule out using a phone's mapping program, but does suggest it needs to be set up in a manner where it is done handsfree, where the driver does not need to hold or touch the phone. Basically, the ruling suggests that it's mostly illegal to touch your mobile phone while driving. The driver noted that this interpretation didn't make much sense, since the legislature had felt the need to add a specific clause to outlaw texting/messaging on phones, but if the overall bill banned any non-hands-free operations, then that would have already been covered. The court disagrees, claiming (oddly) that the added provision also served the purpose of banning non-telephone mobile devices. That may be true, but doesn't explain why that provision also called out messaging services for telephones.

All that said, I generally agree that if you are using mapping software it is probably a hell of a lot safer to somehow have it mounted on your dash, rather than in your hand -- but still this ruling seems to once again highlight the oddities of these particular laws, and how confusing and ineffective they can be.

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Well, this won't come as a huge surprise. Twice this week we've written about a pair of parodists who have been mocking Time Warner Cable and its customer service, first with a video in which they pretend to be TWC Customer Service reps asking people how they can make service worse for customers, and then involving a recording with a customer service rep who suggested that you weren't allowed to record your phone calls with TWC Customer service, even though they were recording you. The efforts were part of a parody campaign for a website called TWCCustomerService.com. For what it's worth, Time Warner has since said that there is no corporate policy saying that callers cannot record their calls, and that was merely a case of one rep overreacting.

That said, Time Warner Cable has apparently decided that the duo at TWCCustomerService have gone way too far in their parody attempt and have been going after their various social media accounts one by one. Already killed are their YouTube account and a bunch of Twitter accounts. The latest is that TWC's legal department has approached GoDaddy, seeking to have the TWCCustomerService.com domain name taken away. According to Kevin Collier at DailyDot, the guys are actually Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler of the comedy duo The Good Liars, and they have a history of doing similar types of pranks. In this case, TWC claims that the duo went too far in using the real name (and image) of Time Warner Cable's CEO, Glenn Britt.

As we noted in our first post about them, some might think that their website and efforts pushed some boundaries, since nowhere do they state directly that they're a parody account, but any human being with a few functioning brain cells should be able to tell within seconds that these guys clearly do not represent Time Warner Cable at all. I can understand why TWC decided to try to shut down the various accounts, but, in the end that's probably exactly what Selvig and Stiefler wanted, as it merely serves to call that much more attention to their antics.

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