Equipping a car with Internet sounds like a strange thought at first, but bear with us here. I recently was on a road trip with my signficant other in New Mexico, which by the way, has a lot of areas with blank cell service. There were times where we wanted to check the closing time for a restaurant or even to make our hours in the car more efficient by making plans for tomorrow.
But inevitably, while the driver of course focused on driving, the passenger would consult both our cell phones to be greeted with "No Service." How much easier would trip planning have been if our car was equipped with wifi? And yes, while most of us are equipped with smart phones and 3G service at the least, not all of us have ample data plans to go along with that service.
For now, according to Edmunds.com, most cars that offer wifi are targeted to an audience with tablets or phones with them. But as the technology becomes pervasive, other uses will emerge. For example, analyst Mark Boyadjis with IHS Technology said (in the same article) that Tesla already uses the technology to do software updates on its vehicles.
Some people will point to potential safety problems with the technology, mainly due to distracted driving. We are now used to the idea of connecting music from our smartphones to the car using Bluetooth. In fact, the car I was driving in New Mexico refused to allow a new Bluetooth pairing while driving, which led to a comical moment mid-highway when the passenger tried to use music from another phone.
Perhaps that safety idea didn't work perfectly for us, and it wouldn't work well for wifi. Wifi that doesn't work when the car is driving is next to useless; you would hope the passenger would be the one scrolling through screens and using it heavily, while the driver focuses on driving. But inevitably, someone will make the attempt to surf and drive with diastrous results.
That said, anything that makes you think of something other than driving is a distraction, University of Toronto professor Ian Spence told Global News in 2013. "Because of the potential for driver distraction, safety should be of great concern," he said. "Many people assume that talking to a voice-operated device will be as safe as using a hands-free cell phone, but neither activity is safe."
So how best to join these twin concerns of data access with safety concerns? The tools that seem to be used so far are education and enforcement. When Ontario (my home province) switched to banning all but hands-free devices for drivers a few years ago, the media had an extensive campaign educating consumers about the development. Police officers handed out warnings for months before cracking down on a long-announced, pre-determined date.
Perhaps the most vivid of these are peer accounts. Think of how accepted it was to drink and drive a couple of generations ago, until celebrities started getting hurt due to these practices and several communities saw children or families hurt by the practice. Today, it is a practice that is far less accepted.
Providing wifi can be used safely in cars, it could end up being a useful tool. What would you like to have it for?
Top image: There are situations where it could be useful to have Internet on the road. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
