US Senators want ban on drink-drive applications
Published:Thursday | March 24, 2011 | 3:04 PM
A group of US senators has asked smart phone firms to stop distributing applications that enable drivers who have been drinking to avoid police checkpoints.
Four Democrats have written to the executives at Apple, Google and Research in Motion, which makes Blackberry devices.
The applications are said to enable users to alert one another to locations where police are stopping motorists.
The senators said the applications put innocent people at risk and asked the companies to remove them from online stores.
The letter cited applications with as many as 10 million users which purport to offer a database of police checkpoints that is updated in real-time.
According to the US department of transportation more than 10,000 people are killed on US roads every year in accidents involving a drunk driver.
A Google spokesman noted that the letter did not name specific applications but said, based on the senators’ descriptions, that they did not appear to violate the company’s content policies.