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Geesch, this is not what I needed to hear. I had read about this before, but did not know the details.
After sitting on a Jury recently I was happy to know that we applied common sense and what I consider good judgment, but I also know that the opposite can be true as well - you are playing the odds as a defendant. Comments such as Defiler's which automatically are biased against this man simply because he had the capability of watching a DVD are unfortunately what many people will say. Truth is that the scenario of being distracted reaching for a soft drink is just as likely - carputer or not.
What is most disturbing about all this is that even if there is an interlock, the state could say that you defeated it or were watching movies from the hard drive. Since nobody has a stock carputer or one that is professionally installed, they could argue that you put it in and would know how to have it display video. What if the hard drive was destroyed and you could not prove that you had frodo's software loaded - or there were no video files on there? They could say that the serial interlock is useless without the software which is simple enough to defeat. Sure the state has the burden of proof, but they can and will suggest these things to the jury.
I built my carputer more as a project or toy, but if it automatically will put me on the defensive should I get in an accident, that is not worth it. That seems to be exactly what happened to this guy. Right now my system is not even functional due to a bad HDD, but that would mean nothing in a similar circumstance.
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