On Tuesday, General Motors revealed a rather savvy new system called GM Marketplace. The system will allow drivers of GM vehicles to order food and drink, reserve tables and eventually, pay for gasoline from the car’s infotainment system.
Naturally, it brings up the real issue that plagues roadways today: distracted driving. The National Safety Council has already expressed major concerns with the system, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, and President Deborah Hersman said it will absolutely contribute to distracted driving.
“There’s nothing about this that’s safe,” Hersman said. “If this is why they want Wi-Fi in the car, we’re going to see fatality numbers go up even higher than they are now.”
Vehicle fatalities grew 5.6 percent in 2016, and many experts point to smartphones and other distractions behind the wheel as a leading cause.
GM noted in its announcement that it developed Marketplace with driving in mind. In fact, the automaker said, “Marketplace is designed to be used while driving.” The automaker added it adhered to industry guidelines for the system to reduce the amount of manual operation. The apps have limits to how many steps a user must go through before completing a particular operation.
Comments
End result? Popup will appear “press here to confirm you’re not the driver”…
Can we all start blaming stupid people instead of objects. How many people have phones versus the number of fatalities? It’s not the phone or device, it’s the idiot using them.
The irony is a phone could be safer…There’s no voice support (yet), you’d be surprised how many thing you can do with your smartphones voice assistance such as order a starbucks coffee…It does nothing right now that your smartphone couldn’t but I see occasional promotions where a customer receives a 10% off discount if pay in the vehicle…