iPhone 4S Siri Use While Driving Illegal in California; Wait What?

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When I first started about the iPhone 4S virtual assistant Siri, I couldn’t but observe its usefulness especially in certain situations where a voice-based smartphone interface would be a lot more appreciated than a touch-based one. Like driving, for example.

But it turns out that pushing Siri’s buttons while driving may get you into trouble with the California law enforcement department. Apparently controlling Siri with your voice while keeping your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel is not permitted by current laws.

Okay, so you have to push a button to activate Siri, and that will get your hand off the wheel. But the same thing happens when you’re pushing other buttons on the car’s dashboard, not to mention changing gears in case you’re still driving stick.

On the other hand, Siri is not capable of reading all the responses that it gives you, so if you plan to ask the kind of questions that would return a lot of text requiring your attention, including driving directions, then you’d better think twice before using Siri while driving. But if you plan to use Siri features that don’t require too much iPhone touching, then that’s another story.

Of course, such laws will not be written to accommodate Siri features, and, ultimately, the safety of the drivers and their passengers comes first. Texting while driving is certainly not advised and plenty of U.S. states have legislation that bans it. San Jose police Lt. Chris Monahan says:

It’s legal to talk to Siri, as long as the phone’s not in your hand. But if you have to push the phone to activate her, or if you ask for directions and she puts them up on her screen for you to read, then California’s hands-free law says your’re breaking the law.

But California Highway Patrol spokesman D.J. Sarabia remarks the problem with state legislation when it comes to Siri. According to him you can ask:

ten of us in law enforcement and you’ll get ten slightly different interpretations. I’d say that holding down the start button for two seconds until she comes on probably doesn’t violate the law. But then it’s one of those subjective things that in the end a judge will have to rule on.’

While legislation won’t change to favor Siri, we can only assume Apple will find ways to make Siri even smarter in order to minimize any physical interaction with the device while talking to the assistant.

The obvious irony here is that Apple employees will not be able to use Siri while driving according to current laws. Unless they carpool!