{"id":2620,"date":"2014-03-04T21:29:07","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T21:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=2620"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:44","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:44","slug":"california-court-looking-at-map-app-while-driving-is-legal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/california-court-looking-at-map-app-while-driving-is-legal\/","title":{"rendered":"California Court: Looking at Map App While Driving is Legal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years ago a California man was pulled over<\/a> for using a map application on his iPhone 4 while driving on a Fresno highway.\u00a0 Steven Spriggs was ticketed and convicted of violating Vehicle Code Section 23123(a), which prohibits drivers<\/a> from using a cell phone while driving unless it is designed to allow hands-free listening and talking.\u00a0 Last week, an appellate court overturned his conviction.
\nThe Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for the State of California unanimously held<\/a> that the statute only prohibits a conversation on a cell phone while driving and holding the phone in your hand.\u00a0 The court focused on the statutory language, believing that the legislature\u2019s use of the phrase \u201chands-free listening and talking,\u201d evidenced that it did not intend to prohibit drivers from holding a phone and using it for any purpose.\u00a0 Furthermore, the court looked at the statute\u2019s legislative history to determine that the legislature was focused on addressing the physical distraction of making a phone call and holding the phone to your ear.
\nCalifornia also has a law prohibiting drivers from writing, sending, or reading a text-based communication while driving.\u00a0 However, Spriggs was not cited under this section.\u00a0 The Vehicle Code section under which Spriggs was ticketed was only intended to \u201cprohibit the use of a wireless telephone to engage in a conversation while driving unless the telephone is used in a hands-free manner,\u201d which Spriggs was not doing.<\/p>\n

‘How are we going to know they\u2019re not texting?\u00a0 I don\u2019t really see how playing with a map is any safer than texting.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A California Highway Patrol spokesperson stated that it is too premature to speculate on what affect the court\u2019s decision will have.\u00a0 Fresno Police Department Captain Andy Hall noted that one major issue with the ruling is the difficulty of determining if a driver is switching between a text message and a maps app.\u00a0 He stated<\/a>, \u201cHow are we going to know they\u2019re not texting?\u00a0 I don\u2019t really see how playing with a map is any safer than texting.\u201d\u00a0 It seems that the state would have had an easier time convicting Spriggs had it ticketed him for violating the ban on text-based communication while driving.\u00a0 But, who knows?\u00a0 California law doesn\u2019t currently seem to ban the use of mobile apps while driving.
\nSpriggs believes<\/a> that \u201c[p]eople who talk on their cellphones or text should get a ticket.\u00a0 But technology is changing so fast. \u00a0There are hundreds of apps nowadays, so it will be interesting to see what the Legislature does.\u201d
\nOn a related note, last October, a woman who was stopped<\/a> by the same California Highway Patrol was found not guilty for wearing Google Glass while driving.\u00a0 Google, which powers the world\u2019s most popular<\/a> application, Google Maps, has been very involved in lobbying<\/a> state legislatures to allow the use of Google Glass while driving.\u00a0 It will be interesting to follow if and how state and local legislatures regulate the use of this and other emerging technologies, like apps, while driving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two years ago a California man was pulled over for using a map application on his iPhone 4 while driving on a Fresno highway.\u00a0 Steven Spriggs was ticketed and convicted of violating Vehicle Code Section 23123(a), which prohibits drivers from using a cell phone while driving unless it is designed to allow hands-free listening and …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7493,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions\/7493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}