It can't fix itself. With bailouts outsourcing tax benefits warmongering overspending.
He's right, they should focus on other aspects of their job, I'm not paying them to review iPhone apps.
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Apple Bans DUI Checkpoint Apps
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It can't fix itself. With bailouts outsourcing tax benefits warmongering overspending.
He's right, they should focus on other aspects of their job, I'm not paying them to review iPhone apps.
This is all well and good, and you told it awesomely...but drunk drivers are still gonna be out there. The police can't get everybody! They can't even stop other crimes. Probably 90 percent of the people who leave the bar are over the legal limit.
One only has to look at the statistics between states that employ DUI checkpoints and those that don't to see that there is no coloration between the two.
The entire premise of your argument is fundamentally flawed on 2 levels.
1) DUI check points deter drunk drivers
2) This app contributes to drunk drivers
This is the problem with a closed platform. If you exert complete control of what apps are available to your users, then everytime some group finds something offensive about what is being offered they will come to Apple to have it removed. If Apple doesn't comply with the request, they will make noise.
As fragmented as Android is, Google could easily pull the app from the market, but people can just sideload the app from a website.
I'm against drunk driving but there are valid reasons why a sober driver may wish to avoid a checkpoint.
As fragmented as Android is, Google could easily pull the app from the market, but people can just sideload the app from a website.
I'm against drunk driving but there are valid reasons why a sober driver may wish to avoid a checkpoint.
Right on, it is a joke...that some developers were irresponsible enough to create these apps.
So just because I'm a teenager that means I'm mixing drinks in my car. You got me, I make sure I keep some Bombay Sapphire and some tonic water in my car at all times, just because that's what we young whipper snapper hooligans do. I'm not saying that I don't drink, I do when I go to parties, or family functions, but I never drive after drinking. Hell I give my keys to a friend or a friend's parent the second I get that first drink. Just because I don't want to get busted for driving after 10pm, and because I drive my friends who don't have cars, doesn't mean that I support drunk driving; it just means that I know that I'm capable after the street lights come on (unlike many adults that I have to deal with on the roads). Get over yourself, and stop preaching; just because some idiots drive after drinking doesn't mean that I should lose access to an app that I use for a completely legitimate (both legally and morally) reason.
-Don
Apps which use data published by police departments are EXEMPTED from the ban. It says so right in this article.
Are people so trigger happy about bashing Apple that they cant even read the article they are bashing them about?
People that decry this as a "limitation of free speech" simply have it wrong. Apple is also entitled to "free speech" and control of their image and their perceived position on various social issues in our society. Those who say this is wrong, must also believe it would be alright to force a clothing store to sell "F@$% America" T-shirts or "Family Christian Stores" to sell books on the "Joys of Atheism".
Apple is not preventing the App makers from selling their product, only from selling their product under the Apple brand. This App has only negative benefits IMO, allowing criminals and drunk drivers to plan routes around checkpoints, and possibly into a head-on with an innocent human being, mother, father, son or daughter. Imagine loosing someone important to you, later learning that only 10 minutes prior they would have been stopped by a checkpoint, but their recovered iPhone reveals "Trapster" still running on the multi-task toolbar. I applaud the decision.
Apple is not preventing the App makers from selling their product, only from selling their product under the Apple brand. This App has only negative benefits IMO, allowing criminals and drunk drivers to plan routes around checkpoints, and possibly into a head-on with an innocent human being, mother, father, son or daughter. Imagine loosing someone important to you, later learning that only 10 minutes prior they would have been stopped by a checkpoint, but their recovered iPhone reveals "Trapster" still running on the multi-task toolbar. I applaud the decision.
So I guess Apple should ban all gun related apps because guns kill people.
Great logic.
I don't know about this one. I pesonally don't think an app promotes drinking and driving. Is that what these Democratic U.S. senators are implying? If someone is determined to locate driving checkpoints, they will do it with or without an app. Apple can do what they want, but their decision to ban them is supporting of censorship.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)
The measure being signed as a law would be limiting free speech. Apple banning this app is definitely reasonable, and in my opinion, a very good move.
The measure being signed as a law would be limiting free speech. Apple banning this app is definitely reasonable, and in my opinion, a very good move.
But here is what I don't get. Let's say a Drunk person downloads this app, and finds out that their route from the party to home goes through a checkpoint. Aren't they now more likely to just stay wherever they are? Without the app, the person would risk it and drive drunk all the way to the checkpoint, endangering everyone along the way.
Alternative option for the drunk person using the app is to take an alternative route. Since I presume most checkpoints are on populated routes, then even if the person goes around they will be on a less populated road than their intended route.
I'm just not sure how this app being used makes me as a sober driver any less safe. It would appear to make me more safe. I'm open to suggestions to the contrary, as long as they have some logic behind them
Not yet. But when this is how you think:
...it's only a matter of time. Check back when you're 25 and tell us you didn't eventually do something stupid in a car.
Huh ? Comparison fail
iPhones don't shoot bullets. These apps do however point out to people where they might get into trouble with the law, hence potentially promoting atleast some of them to disobey them. Not that hard to understand.
This reminded me of all the people who kvetched about speed enforcement cameras. Particularly those that also mentioned how fast they go above the posted speed limit when the "pigs" aren't around. How unfair it is that they "got caught speeding".
Big F to the U to them. If the weren't speeding and making the roads unsafe (and there are plenty of traffic studies to back this claim, I will go get them off Google Scholar if y'all like), then they wouldn't have an issue. Same with DUI check points.
@Dmac77, come talk to us again in 20 years when you've been an adult for a while. I appreciate that you are working for your family to help make ends meet, however the law is still the law. If you are also speeding while breaking the 10pm curfew... you've just proven the point as to why we (the population in it's legal majority and not suffering from hormonal imbalance) don't trust you to be out as provisional drivers that late at night.
Now if i have misunderstood you Dmac77 and you have never speed while out at that time, I apologize. I would also suggest contacting you local state legislature or representative with a well worded (and spell/grammar checked) letter/e-mail with your concerns and situation. With the suggestion of revising the law to allow for "proven" teen drivers to gain an exemption based academics, employment record, and other proof of "moral fiber". We adults love that kind of ****. Don't bitch about the system, bitch with the system to change it. Which will require effort, but that's how adult life works.
If you chose to take that advice I will welcome you in advance to adulthood and maturity.
Big F to the U to them. If the weren't speeding and making the roads unsafe (and there are plenty of traffic studies to back this claim, I will go get them off Google Scholar if y'all like), then they wouldn't have an issue. Same with DUI check points.
@Dmac77, come talk to us again in 20 years when you've been an adult for a while. I appreciate that you are working for your family to help make ends meet, however the law is still the law. If you are also speeding while breaking the 10pm curfew... you've just proven the point as to why we (the population in it's legal majority and not suffering from hormonal imbalance) don't trust you to be out as provisional drivers that late at night.
Now if i have misunderstood you Dmac77 and you have never speed while out at that time, I apologize. I would also suggest contacting you local state legislature or representative with a well worded (and spell/grammar checked) letter/e-mail with your concerns and situation. With the suggestion of revising the law to allow for "proven" teen drivers to gain an exemption based academics, employment record, and other proof of "moral fiber". We adults love that kind of ****. Don't bitch about the system, bitch with the system to change it. Which will require effort, but that's how adult life works.
If you chose to take that advice I will welcome you in advance to adulthood and maturity.
On topic: sad that Apple limits it out, but as another said--Apple is between a rock and a hard place. They chose to go with big-brother.
Semi-off: guess who drives drunk? ANYONE THAT WANTS TO AND CAN. You'd be shocked to know how many have and do drive drunk. It's probably well over half the drivers on the road. Few get caught or in accidents because they can handle it, or are lucky. Don't like that? Well, too bad. Reality is harsh. The law has done absolutely nothing to stop drunk driving or accidents from it, and the law hasn't even dented the amount of violators or violations.
Semi-off: guess who drives drunk? ANYONE THAT WANTS TO AND CAN. You'd be shocked to know how many have and do drive drunk. It's probably well over half the drivers on the road. Few get caught or in accidents because they can handle it, or are lucky. Don't like that? Well, too bad. Reality is harsh. The law has done absolutely nothing to stop drunk driving or accidents from it, and the law hasn't even dented the amount of violators or violations.
Agreed,
However, I care less about these specific apps than i do about how easy it was for congress to get them banned and what they will find objectionable next. Banning knowledge and the sharing of knowledge of any kind is a very slippery slope and can quickly lead to abuses of power.
I agree with some of the other posters. This is not a free speech issue. No one is saying you can't tell people about those checkpoints, just that you can't use the App Store to do it.
However, i don't believe there are limitations to free speech that are reasonable. As long as i have the ability/option to not listen to what you say.
In most cases people are likely to drive drunk not because they know where the checkpoint is to avoid, but because they are idiots. If you look at repeat offender rates it appears that getting caught is not a deterrent.
Do you really think that app is likely to influence a drunks decision on wether or not to drive? It is just as likely they will decide to not drive at all because they have to pass a checkout. Some will see that info and decide to drive around it, those people were gonna be on the road drunk regardless.
So the argument can be made that removing this app from the store may actually get people killed. (it's not a good argument, but it's just as valid as saying removing the app could save lives.)
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that MADD really is a modern day prohibitionist movement. Read up on how DUI laws have changed from trying to catch people who are impaired to catching people who have any alcohol in their system at all ignoring any impairment.
As far as checkpoints are concerned many states have realized that they do violate the 4th amendment and must be announced or are no longer done in the state. In CO they must put up a big sign announcing an upcoming checkpoint and allow people to take a different route.
There's no law preventing someone from taking another route so as to avoid a checkpoint. Like the other poster, I don't drink and drive but find it irritating to be held up while some deputy tries to scope out if I've been drinking.
The real problem with what Apple did is that it's going to open them up to pressure any time somebody is in disagreement with the purpose of an app --- wait till someone ties one into the right to life---choice issue.
Don't use statistics as the backbone of your argument without providing proof they exist.
Who said DUI checkpoints deter drunk drivers? They may not, but they do find drunk drivers and penalize them, which keeps them off the road for a while.
If an app allows a drunk driver to avoid a checkpoint that would have removed the drunk driver from the road and limited his ability to drive drunk in the future, it's safe to say the app contributes to drunk driving.
That's a good joke. MADD has become the modern day equivalant of the Christian Women's Temperance Union, and MADD's members are the modern day Carrie Nations, except they are hypocrites unlike Nation. Even the founder of MADD has gone on record stating that MADD has gone to far, and she has disassociated herself from the organization because she says it has turned into a temperance (or "neo-prohibitionist" as she called it) organization and is no longer an anti-drunk driving organization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Lightner
The law has an exception for traveling home from work. The fact is that if I did not break this law I would have no life except for working, school, studying, and more work. If you can't stand people who break this law, then I suppose you can't stand the majority of Michigan families with teen drivers.
-Don
But here is what I don't get. Let's say a Drunk person downloads this app, and finds out that their route from the party to home goes through a checkpoint. Aren't they now more likely to just stay wherever they are? Without the app, the person would risk it and drive drunk all the way to the checkpoint, endangering everyone along the way.
Alternative option for the drunk person using the app is to take an alternative route. Since I presume most checkpoints are on populated routes, then even if the person goes around they will be on a less populated road than their intended route.
I'm just not sure how this app being used makes me as a sober driver any less safe. It would appear to make me more safe. I'm open to suggestions to the contrary, as long as they have some logic behind them
Some bad assumptions here. The checkpoints here in Cincinnati are almost always on major roads, normally quiet at bar-closing hours, and normally with wide shoulders and divided medians with barriers. Now the driver chooses to take the "back roads" with little or no shoulders, no barriers between oncoming traffic, and through more residential roads. Even if less populated, he/she is not passing only a few feet from the occasional oncoming car. And even if they hit no other people, they are more of a threat to themselves with trees and utility poles just off the road, and turns and bends that are not permitted on major highways.
No, the person that buys this App isn't buying it to see "if" he should drive home. He is buying it to figure out "how" to drive home. Too cheap to get a cab, it's just a short drive, . . . etc. Learning of a checkpoint just tells him where the on-duty cops are not located. He/she will still drive.