In this third post about the connected vehicle we will talk about safety, and it is that safety at the vehicle is one of the most worrying issues when we talk about Apps in the connected vehicle.
And it is no triviality, the mobile is one of the devices that poses higher levels of distraction behind the wheel, and one of the important causes of traffic accidents.
If we see it with an example of distraction, if we think that it takes us about 6 seconds to write a message on a smartphone, that is the time when, at a speed of 60 km per hour it takes time to tour a football stadium.
According to other reports from public entities related to road safety, talking on the cell phone while driving causes about 40% of the road signs to be lost, multiplying the risk by accident with a multiple of four.
This phenomenon is getting more and more in the society, reducing the number of people who claims to speak and write on the mobile while driving.
A recent study by the University of Utah concludes: “The fact that a new technology does not force you to look away from the road or the hands of the driver does not mean that it is 100% safe.” And we already knew this. In addition, other studies affirm that although we make calls with the hands free, if these have a duration greater than 2 minutes, the distraction increases considerably.
We can say that a driver who uses the smartphone while driving loses the ability to maintain a constant speed, increases considerably the reaction time and, finally, does not keep enough safety distance with the vehicle in front. These factors are more than enough to increase the risk of having an accident, so the safety factor when we talk about the vehicle connected is an important fact.
Who is ultimately responsible for security? There is no doubt that this task must be the driver, but we can not deny that developers, Stores and manufacturers play a key role.
Developers should be aware of the use of their applications and their real usefulness for the moment of driving, seeking to hide certain functionalities while the vehicle is in motion. Apps stores, on the other hand, must provide developers with guidelines for the development of secure apps, even failing to publish in their respective Stores those that do not meet certain criteria.
If all these agents carry out their functions in a coherent and responsible way, we can ensure that the road safety laws of each country, will not be able to oppose the technological advances.
Our SlashBoy Juan Ramón Ruiz, Software Developer Manager, is the author of this post.