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Cecilia Abadie is one of Google’s Glass Explorers — an early adopter of the head-mounted display.
(Credit: Cecilia Abadie)
While driving in her home city of San Diego earlier this week, she was pulled over by police and given a ticket for wearing her Google Glass headset while driving.
The exact wording of the violation on the ticket, according to the scan Abadie made available on her G+ page, is “driving with monitor visible to driver (Google Glass)”.
While Californian law prohibits a driver from operating a vehicle while viewing a video device, there is a GPS exemption law that, arguably, could cover turn-based navigation via Google Glass.
For her part, Abadie said that she wasn’t even actively using Glass at the time.
Google covers off on the use of Glass while driving or cycling in its FAQ, stating that:
As you probably know, most states have passed laws limiting the use of mobile devices while driving any motor vehicle, and most states post those rules on their department of motor vehicles websites. Read up and follow the law! Above all, even when you’re following the law, don’t hurt yourself or others by failing to pay attention to the road. The same goes for bicycling: whether or not any laws limit your use of Glass, always be careful.
While Abadie will contest the ticket, it shows that Californian authorities are ahead of the curve when it comes to policing new technologies. When Google Glass finally arrives in general retail in Australia, we’ll be very interested to see what legislature the individual state traffic authorities create around the device.
