OFF THE WIRE
If you’re driving down the road in the future and you see a cop pointing what appears to be a radar gun your way, stepping on the brake to slow down might not help you out, because speeding might not be what he’s looking for.
A
company is working on a detection gun for law enforcement that could
tell if someone in a car is texting. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)
According to the Virginian-Pilot, ComSonics is creating a device that picks up on radio frequencies that come from a cellphone being used inside the car. Malcolm McIntyre, the company’s calibration services manager, told the newspaper that text messages emit a different frequency than other cellphone activities. This would allow such a device to determine if a driver were possibly sending a text behind the wheel.
ComSonics already has a foot into the law enforcement industry in that it offers calibration and repair services for radar and lidar equipment.
The Virginian-Pilot reported that this new technology would be similar to its devices that are used by cable technicians to detect leaks. ComSonic’s QAM Sniffer, for example, is able to locate a leak by picking up frequencies from a cable.
While McIntyre said the text-detecting gun is “close to production,” it would still have to gain legal approval and be brought into law enforcement departments.
According to AutoEvolution, ComSonic also said at the Virginia Distracted Driving Summit this week that it is still working on a way to find who out in a vehicle might have been texting, if there is more than one person in the car.
According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, 44 states ban texting while driving. The Federal Communications Commission pointed out that research has found texting while driving increases a crash risk by 23 percent compared to a situation where a driver is not distracted.
(H/T: Popular Science)