Rockefeller Demands Solution from Industry on Distracted Driving

"I'm pretty hard line on this stuff,” Rockefeller told panelists from major industry companies within seconds of sitting down. “If I had my way, it would be illegal to use whatever systems you invent.” Rockefeller said he understands the profit motive but not in cases such as water spills in West Virginia. “I'm also generally suspicious of what I think is a vast competitive drive … within each of your companies to outdo anyone else in selling packages or parts of packages, some of which are integrated, some of which are not. I'm very unhappy about that.”

Industry should resolve the dilemma together and should do so without breaking antitrust laws, Rockefeller said, explaining the reasoning for panels bringing industry together. If he had his way, he would introduce a bill to outlaw many of these devices and not gather enough co-sponsors due to industry lobbying efforts, he said. “That would be happiness for me,” Rockefeller said of introducing a bill. “We have to come out of this with more than ‘we're doing what we can.'”

Rockefeller said he doesn’t bend to the argument of having to catch up to a rapidly changing culture. Teenagers see the technology as being cool, as do automotive companies, he reflected. If stakeholders do not fix the problem, the Senate Commerce Committee will try, Rockefeller said. “And you may lobby hard against it, and you may prevail,” Rockefeller added. “Know me to be very unhappy, to be very nervous.” Some stakeholders “may think what you're doing is creating a social good,” he said, asking for anyone who thinks that to explain “how so.”

No one at a full roundtable initially answered. “We have looked at distraction long before distraction was a headline,” General Motors Vice President-Sustainability & Global Regulatory Affairs Michael Robinson eventually said when Rockefeller pressed the panelists. He mentioned “good stuff going on” within efforts from CEA.

"Why is it I have a hard time accepting what you say?” Rockefeller asked.

"We created OnStar 17 years ago,” Robinson said, citing a system that offers hands-free calling. Within a minute of Robinson’s response, Rockefeller interrupted. “Let’s stop there.” He asked what motivation there was besides making money or keeping up with competition.

"This is a multi-front problem,” said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who also attended the summit’s third panel. He mentioned state and federal laws and that it’s not a problem of simply young people. “You see it every time you're behind the wheel,” he said of other drivers’ distractions from texting and talking. “It’s just a ticking time bomb for everyone who’s doing it on the road.”

A real solution would be one “that simultaneously solves the problem of driver distraction … and intersects that with what customers actually want to use,” Google’s Nick Solaro, who heads global Android business development, told Rockefeller when he pressed panelists on everyone mentioning a solution without suggesting what it is. “Where we fall on that continuum is going to be more art than science.”

During earlier panels, before Rockefeller joined, industry participants touted their efforts in this arena. AT&T has a DriveMode application for phones to “suppress notifications,” said AT&T Mobility Assistant Vice President-Product Development Ken DiPrima. “It eliminates the desire for someone to actually look and read that [text].” It can affect calls as well, he said. He has used it and likes it, he said. There’s also the similar Sprint Drive First application, said Sprint Legal Counsel Ray Rothermel. “We've put lot of work into it internally.” Sprint “paid particular attention to the way 911 interacts with the application,” he added, pointing out that 911 calls can override the app to allow users to reach emergency services. People demand to be connected now and if industry fails, people aren’t happy, he said.

CEA has convened stakeholders looking for industry consensus on best practices, said Veronica O'Connell, CEA vice president-congressional affairs. “We at CEA do not believe there should be texting while driving,” O'Connell said. The working group is diverse, however, with plenty yet to hash out, she said, with plans to release recommended guidelines this summer if not earlier. “They will set the parameters, they will set the framework.”

CTIA emphasized the “decrease in accidents” over the years, from the late 1990s through 2012, and urged panelists to keep that framing in mind “to ground” perspectives, said CTIA Vice President-Public Affairs John Walls. That drop has happened despite “more drivers, more miles, many more subscribers, and a hockey stick of increased use,” Walls said. Still, CTIA has been “advocating for anti-texting measures” for the past five or six years, with a focus on the state level, Walls said, also saying “we can certainly pick up the pace” in enforcement.

Analytics tools have the potential to help people become better drivers and, through reviewing analysis of their driving, realize when they were distracted, said Verizon Telematics Vice President-Advanced Strategies Tom Taylor. “We're going to see more software being able to come down into the car.” He expects rapid improvements, with all the pieces now in place, going forward, he added. Voice recognition and text-to-speech are other features worth watching, Google’s Andrew Brenner, product manager for Android for Automotive, said. But Google wants to take these elements “to the next level,” he added, pointing to recent collaborations announced at CES. “Our job is to convince the customer to put the phone down,” Toyota Vice President-Electronic Systems Wayne Powell, emphasizing his company’s commitment to hand-free features as well as broader collaboration.

"One of the biggest trends I saw from CES is wearable technology,” said Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers Vice President-Vehicle Safety and Harmonization Robert Strassburger. “I'm talking about smartphones, I'm talking about Google Glass and competitors to Google Glass, etc.”

"I'll be curious how next year’s CES looks,” said Nathaniel Beuse, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) associate administrator for vehicle safety research, when people design their products according to NHTSA guidelines. NHTSA is attempting to “set forth a framework for folks to innovate in that space,” he said, pointing to certain activities deemed unsafe. “Updating your Facebook shouldn’t be done while driving. We've been pretty clear on that."

"In the last five years, I have had many more close calls in driving than I ever had before,” Rockefeller remarked at the summit. He asked the stakeholders to stay committed after what he called “the first little nibble” of this summit. He lamented moments “when the culture controls us, and controls what we do,” insisting he has no desire to “yield the field.” If a teenager were texting in the audience during a Rockefeller speech, he could yield, or he could simply call it what he thinks it is, he said: “Rude as hell.”