Google Talks UK Government Into Allowing Drivers to Wear Google Glass [Report]
Following talks between Google and the UK's Department for Transport (DfT), it appears that drivers in the UK will be allowed to wear Google Glass if they want. — According to an article in the Sunday Times …
Context & Ripple Effects
In March 2013, US lawmakers were already pushing to ban Google Glass on the road, framing the headset as a distracted-driving hazard before most people had touched one. Google widened access through its developer purchase program in November 2013, putting more units in circulation just as regulators were deciding how to treat them.
The new wrinkle, per a Sunday Times report carried by The Next Web, Sunday Times Driving, Softpedia and Geeky Gadgets, is that talks between Google and the UK's Department for Transport have ended with UK drivers reportedly free to wear Glass — an unconfirmed report, but one that positions Britain as accommodating where the initial legislative instinct was prohibition.
First-order effects
- British drivers can reportedly wear Google Glass without falling foul of the DfT, removing the legal ambiguity that had hung over the device since the 2013 ban proposals.
- Google gets a regulatory template outside the US at the exact moment it is expanding who can buy Glass through the developer channel.
Second-order effects
- Other jurisdictions weighing Glass bans now have a counter-example to cite, and Google gains a talking point — 'the UK allows it' — for parallel fights elsewhere over whether headsets belong in cars.
- Road-safety enforcement bodies face a practical problem the DfT's stance sidesteps: police cannot visually confirm whether a wearer's display is active, pushing enforcement toward behavior rather than hardware.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, wearable-display regulation settles on use-based rules (what the driver is doing) instead of device-based bans (what the driver is wearing), a framework that would apply to every future heads-up product, not just Glass.
The trend: Wearable computing is forcing road-safety regulators to choose between banning devices by name and policing driver behavior, and the UK's reported accommodation of Glass is an early data point for the permissive path.