BALTIMORE (March 28, 2011) — Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden today called on Google and Apple to ban smartphone applications that help users avoid drunk-driving checkpoints. The applications, currently available for download for Apple iPhone and Google Android phones, provide the locations of police checkpoints and allow users to report checkpoints to others.
“These smartphone applications give drunk drivers a ‘how-to’ guide to evade DUI checkpoints and endanger the lives of innocent citizens on our roads,” said Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler. “We strongly urge Google and Apple to take the most responsible and reasonable step and ban these types of applications altogether. These are nothing more than an overt method of circumventing laws that were specifically enacted to save lives.”
“I’m deeply concerned that these smartphone applications reduce our ability to get impaired drivers off the streets and protect our families from the tragic consequences of drinking and driving,” said Attorney General Biden. “Automobiles with drunk drivers behind the wheel are deadly weapons. I am urging Apple to do the right thing and join us in keeping drunk drivers off our roads, not provide them with a road map to avoid checkpoints that are meant to protect our families.”
In a letter sent to Apple’s Senior Vice President for iPhone Software and the Chief Executive Officer of Google, Attorneys General Biden and Gansler call on the companies to take the responsible step of removing these applications. Vehicles driven by drunk drivers, they explain, are deadly weapons and we should be doing everything we can to keep drunk drivers off our roads, not providing them with a road map to avoid checkpoints that are meant to protect our families.
Source: Office of Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler