Does Virigina Texting Law Go Far Enough?

On July 1st, 2009 a new law in Virginia took effect which bans texting while driving. Now, I do admit that I have texted myself while driving, and have seen what other people do while texting and driving, and I can say that I'm very happy to know that this law is now in place. It is very distracting to the driver and encourages aggressive driving by people driving behind that person. But does the law go far enough? Let's break down the new law, shall we? Note, I am not a lawyer...just a simple citizen...do not take my interpretation as law. It's only comment.

A. It shall be unlawful for any person to operate a moving motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth while using any handheld personal communications device to:

Notice the "on the highways" portion. This means that side streets, routes, and neighborhood areas are NOT included. According to this, you're free to drive through a crowded neighborhood area where little children are playing around and text away to hearts content.

Now, if Virginia refers to "highways" as meaning "any roadway" then they should've said that, or provided a glossary of terms in the bill to clarify.

1. Manually enter multiple letters or text in the device as a means of communicating with another person; or

This is very interesting. The law only applies if you text in order to communicate with "another person." Well, what if I'm manually entering letters as a means to search in Google? Apparently I can do that still...although that's just as distracting to me since I'm having to view my results, decide which links to click on by reading descriptions, zoom in/out to view the page better, click the link and read the resulting page, etc. There's much more concentration needed to do that than there is in sending a quick text message. BUT, you can legally still do this since you're not "communicating with another person".

However, this does mean you can't use any Twitter apps since you would be communicating to another person. This could get interesting, one day, if VA Police decided to start searching through tweets for people that are posting their GPS coordinates to each tweet that are residing within VA state lines on VA highways. I can see someone getting a ticket in the mail for $20 because they tweeted from I-95 and tagged their tweet with their location.

2. Read any email or text message transmitted to the device or stored within the device, provided that this prohibition shall not apply to any name or number stored in the device nor to any caller identification information.

This part is fine but it's really just saying you can't read email or text messages, but you can look at your contacts or callerID in order to call someone. Why not just say that?

B. The provisions of this section shall not apply to:

1. The operator of any emergency vehicle;

2. An operator who is lawfully parked or stopped;

I'm assuming here that #2 means stopped at a stoplight, side of the road, OR in the middle of stopped traffic, right? Because stopping in stopped traffic is the lawful thing to do or else you would've plowed into the car in front of you. If this is the case, and I'm texting in dead stopped traffic with an officer next to me what will happen? Anything?

3. The use of factory-installed or aftermarket global positioning systems (GPS) or wireless communications devices used to transmit or receive data as part of a digital dispatch system; or

So, I can still use my iPhone for getting turn by turn directions using my Google Maps app. That's good to know...and it doesn't really matter that I'm not part of a "digital dispatch system" since I'm using an app and I'm not using it to communicate with another person.

4. Any person using a handheld personal communications device to report an emergency.

This is a given and they further go on to explain about emergency vehicles.

So there's the break down. Texting, at one time, was the only thing you could do on a phone other than calling someone. But with smart phones like the iPhone, Palm Pre, BlackBerry, etc things like apps, games, web browsing, and photos and videos have saturated the market. Interacting with these things is much more distracting to the driver than texting.

While I applaud Virginia for taking a step toward making our roads safer, I believe this current version of the law has a lot of potholes in it that need to be filled.

Do you think VA Law should've gone further to cover anything that is not related to phone calls, navigation apps, and emergency services? Speak out.

Is Vivek Kundra in the GovLoop?

Yesterday at the Web Content Managers Forum yearly conference, we had the pleasure of listening to, and asking questions of, Vivek Kundra (Obama's CIO), and Macon Phillips (White House Director of New Media). They gave some excellent answers and were very upfront about making sure government pushes forward in the information technology world.

However, I decided to pose a question to see how in touch with the government community they were. I stood up to the microphone and asked them if they were both members of the Web Content Managers Forum and/or GovLoop.

Those are the two major spaces in which government and government-interested people can interact and discuss any topic of interest. There are a lot of great ideas and solutions, as well as challenges posted on those sites. I figure if you're going to tell the Government community (local, state, and federal) that you want them to push forward then you should, at least, be involved in the online communities that we collaborate in...especially ones like GovLoop that have just passed the 10,000 member mark. Much the same reasoning that an organization would decide to upload their videos to YouTube...because that's where the community goes, learns, and thrives.

I was surprised to hear that Macon was on GovLoop. He's not an active member, but to his credit he did admit that up front. Vivek, however, was not a member of either. Now, I know it probably shouldn't matter whether or not he's a member of either community...and I'm not saying anything against him for not being part of them. BUT, I do think it's important for Vivek to be part of one, or both, of those communities. Even if he's not an active member, he still should be able to partake in some discussion with the community that is heavily supporting his role in this new Administration.

There's a lot of pressure, I'm sure, on Vivek to move us in a forward direction. And we, the government community, support him in his efforts to get us there. But, it would be nice to see him part of the online community as well and not just the bureaucratic one.

So, Vivek...will you keep in the GovLoop?

They Follow Me, They Follow Me Not...

I've decided to give any of you that follow me on Twitter (@ScottHorvath) permission to feel "guilt-free" and drop me as you see fit. Did I say "give" you permission? You certainly don't need my permission to do anything on Twitter, however, many people feel guilty if they drop someone since many use Qwitter to track Twitter drops. What has compelled me to do this? Well, that would be a recent post by one of the people I follow, @AriHerzog.

Ari recently blogged about how he was cleaning up shop, dumping all of his followers, and starting fresh again. He would only add those people that, as he states "provide value to me."

Well, I applaud Ari for taking action and turning down his tweetnoise. I need to turn down my noise as well. But instead of dropping everyone, I want to give my current followers a chance first.

I don't really know what criteria I would go by when dropping people. I enjoy most of the tweets I see but it is hard to read them all. So, the way I see it...if you drop me then that gives me a starting point. I'll check your profile and then see if you're providing value to me, if I'm a mutual follower. Maybe we're not providing value to each other and we can mutually end our tweetship as adults. Don't feel guilty dropping me. I only want to be followed if I'm providing value to you. I mean that. I may not tweet the perfwect wittle tweet evewy time, but maybe there's a few here and there that do provide value.

Originally people followed me because I focused on Web 2.0 and social media. Also, I was mentioned in a few #followfriday tweets from several highly followed people. Lately, I've had less time to tweet (b/c of personal issues), and I haven't been so "2.0-ish" with my tweets. So, I can understand where I may no longer be providing value to people.

And yes, I do have Qwitter so I will know if you drop me. Again, I won't take it personally. In fact, I'll thank you for doing so since I only want to be followed if I'm providing value to you...then I can thank YOU for cleaning up your own twit-stress.

"Facebooking Killed the Blogosphere Star"

I read an article today about blogging being dead and being replaced by social sites like Facebook where you can post the same content and then some. Thinking about it...it does make sense. With so many bloggers out there overcrowding the blogosphere it has gotten to a point where blogging no longer is the medium it once was. The only bloggers that get paid attention to are the big name ones. And even some of them have decided to stop blogging as well.

Does that mean the blogosphere will be emptying anytime soon? Not hardly.

But why not post your "blog posts" to your social networking site of your choice where you know exactly who your audience is (your friends) and you can easily add multimedia content without even thinking about it? If you want a bigger audience, or a more specific audience segment (e.g. - technical people) then you can join technical groups, participate in conversations in that group, and then add friends to your profile from that group.

Because of the various levels of permissions that many of the social networking sites provide you with, you can effectively hide your really personal information from those people and still keep your friends in the loop on  what you're up to and still promote your posts to a larger audience. You also open up the doors for more people to see your posts over them accidently finding your blog.

So, again...this is a thought I'm considering trying out. In fact, this might be my last post if it does work out. 

RSS Cheat Sheet

I created this RSS cheat sheet awhile back. So far I've gotten a lot of good response out of it. It includes all the RSS 2.0 tags and attributes, quick tutorials on how to add RSS feeds using your browser or RSS reader, and a sample code section that lists all the tags with attributes and the iTunes required tags as well for easy copy and paste.

If you have any feedback on this, positive or negative, feel free to leave a comment. If people are going to use it then it might as well be worth using, right?

RSS Cheat Sheet v1.1 - Upload a Document to Scribd