Wear Google Glass while driving, get booked by cops

Yep. Here’s the gist from The Inquirer:

We contacted the Metropolitan Poice, where chief constable Suzette Davenport, National Policing Lead for Roads Policing, said, “Regulation 109 of the Construction and Use (motor vehicle) Regulations makes it an offence to drive a motor vehicle on a road if the driver can see whether directly or by reflection any cinematographic apparatus used to display anything other than information about the state of vehicle, to assist the driver to see the road ahead or adjacent to him/her or to navigate to his/her destination.”

So the message is fairly clear. It’s no to driving while wearing Google Glass eyewear.

She also added, “Those who breach the regulations face prosecutions.”

A spokesman for the Department for Transport told us that, at present, because no legislation exists regarding Google Glass, it is up to the police to interpret the existing laws as they see fit, however its position is that it sees Google Glass as a “significant threat” to road safety.

The spokesman said, “Drivers must give their full attention to the road, which is why it has been illegal since the 1980s to view a screen whilst driving, unless that screen is displaying driving information.

“There are no plans to change this and we have met with Google to discuss the implications of the current law for Google Glass. Google are anxious their products do not to pose a road safety risk and are currently considering options to allow the technology to be used in accordance with the law.”

Why the Obamacare website was doomed

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This morning’s Observer column.

So why was the Obamacare site launch such a disaster? Writing in the New York Times, two politically experienced geeks argue that it’s mostly down to the way the government purchases IT services. “Much of the problem,” they write, “has to do with the way the government buys things. The government has to follow a code called the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which is more than 1,800 pages of legalese that all but ensure that the companies that win government contracts, like the ones put out to build HealthCare.gov, are those that can navigate the regulations best, but not necessarily do the best job.”

That strikes a chord over here. British civil servants have traditionally been technologically illiterate, so when ministers demand a new IT system to fix some failing that is annoying the Daily Mail, Sir Humphrey breaks into a cold sweat. He knows nothing about this stuff, except that it costs a bomb and that it usually bombs. The spectre of the National Audit Office looms over him. He does not want another IT disaster attached to his personnel file. So what does he do?

Simple: he calls up the big consultancy firms asking for tenders. These in turn call up their chums in brain-dead firms called “system integrators” who know only how to do one thing, namely to build massive integrated IT systems the way they were built in the 1960s. And thus begins another death march to oblivion; another project that is billions over budget and years behind schedule.

LATER: Seb Schmoller pointed me to this excellent Washington Post piece which explains, in detail, why the poisonous politics surrounding Obamacare made it impossible to mount a rationally-planned and executed website project.

Detention for holding political beliefs

An illuminating excerpt from the ‘justification’ used by the Metropolitan police when detaining David Miranda at Heathrow.

“We assess that Miranda is knowingly carrying material, the release of which would endanger people’s lives. Additionally the disclosure or threat of disclosure is designed to influence a government, and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism and as such we request that the subject is examined under schedule 7.”

Welcome to Britain, home of the free. And to the laws framed by New Labour btw.