Policing the Police on Those Distracting In-Car Computers

It's hard enough to resist picking up the phone or glancing at a text when you're behind the wheel, but imagine you have a laptop computer – with internet access, no less – mounted to your dashboard. That's what driving is like for most police officers, whose squad cars are often equipped with these tools of the trade. And for all the help computers surely provide to officers, they're also a tempting and dangerous distraction, especially when the person behind the wheel is the one charged with keeping city streets safe.

So it's probably a smart move for the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to install a new system in the police department's squad cars that automatically disables the computer's keyboard and touchscreen when the car is moving more than 15 miles per hour.