If the police suspect that alcohol may have contributed to an accident in some way they tend to make the suspect take a breathalyzer, but what do they use if they suspect that texting might be involved? A new proposed New York bill aims to empower police to use a “textalyzer” to find out whether or not the driver was distracted by typing on their phone when the accident took place.
It’s not a secret that many people still indulge in the potentially dangerous activity that is texting while driving. It’s illegal and it’s known to cause accidents and yet people still do it anyway.
The new state Senate bill is going to allow police in New York to submit drivers to a textalyzer, which is basically a device that scans the phone for recent activity, after an accident to determine if the driver was distracted because he or she was using their phone behind the wheel.
The tech behind this textalyzer is not capable of accessing contents on the phone itself, much to the pleasure of privacy advocates, as it can only determine whether or not the phone was being used at the time of the accident. If cops want to check whether a conversation really was taking place via the road while the driver was driving they will need a warrant to look into the records.
Filed in . Read more about Texting. Source: prnewswire