Yes and no.. I would not appreciate someone cutting me off because they need to grab that specific Pokemon.

And while I realize that would be more an exception than rule, it would still happen. It drives me crazy enough when people just slam on the breaks after they miss an exit/turn (just keep going until you can turn around, please) - I personally would not like that extra dabble of human reaction thrown into a commuter experience.

Please stop hindering cool stuff just because you have a sucky driving experience. You'll have a sucky driving experience regardless - assholes exist everywhere, Google Pokemon or not.

Edit: I see I'm being downvoted so I'd like to elaborate: Frankly, the behaviour of people on the road is and should be of zero concern to the developer of an app that has nothing to do with driving. Should the original dev behind the port of 2048 have stopped to think how many deaths his app would cause because idiots would play it while driving?

Maybe I'm biased because I find that too many people solve the transportation problem with cars when their use case is covered with bikes or public transports at lower costs. (Translation, I think that driving is stupid unless you got an excellent reason. Please don't list your excellent reasons.)

Sucky?

Sucky is being stuck in endless traffic or getting a flat tire.

I'm talking about the disregard people have for the safety of others at times while on the open road. I want a safe drive, you want pokemon on the side of the road - I think somewhere on the path to those goals there are enough compromises we would both share.

Reply to the edit:

>Frankly, the behaviour of people on the road is and should be of zero concern to the developer of an app that has nothing to do with driving.

You want app developers to take possible use-cases and completely ignore them? That doesn't seem like a very good user experience.

> Maybe I'm biased because I find that too many people solve the transportation problem with cars when their use case is covered with bikes or public transports at lower costs. (Translation, I think that driving is stupid unless you got an excellent reason. Please don't list your excellent reasons.)

You are biased, and confirm it with your parenthetical statement.

People are going to own and use cars despite what your opinion on use-cases is. I personally would rather developers keep that in mind instead of just throwing a whole ton of crap out there that may actually affect my personal safety.

That said, I think the second point is slightly deviating away from the original topic.

How about I, as a developer, "consider your safety" by only releasing my app in European markets where bicycling is more popular than car-travel?

I think it'd be highly inefficient to specifically consider only my safety.

I'm also pretty sure they drive cars in Europe. How does your suggestion aid someone in Germany that just got clipped from someone pulling over unexpectedly?

Also, your suggestion brings up a thought: I'm sure that driver laws differ from country to country in Europe. You're going to need to build some sort of UI/UX that complies with those laws if you want the app to be used freely while driving.

It is illegal in most countries including Germany to use a hand-held device while driving. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safet...

Having the app switch off when the GPS calculates you are traveling faster than 30kmh would be an interesting hack.

> Having the app switch off when the GPS calculates you are traveling faster than 30kmh would be an interesting hack.

The Japanese carrier docomo have an Android app to stop you from using your smartphone while walking, the latest menace to public safety.

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/info/news_release/2013/12/03_00....

Even switching off the touch capability would be worthwhile, so you could only use voice. (hands-free)

It's not about people being assholes. Car accidents kill more young (<35) adults than anything else.

Ingress (which interestingly is also linked to google) works something like that. Wouldn't be surprised if they're prototyping for a big game release in the future.

There's ways for apps to detect when the device is in motion at a speed that is most likely a car and prevent the user from engaging with the app. A good example of Waze which prevents users from doing car to car chat when driving.