Hitting the Breaks on Texting While Driving

We all know that texting and driving is a huge issue around the world.  According to Edgar Snyder and Associates, a law firm that represents injured people, texting while driving makes a driver 23x more likely to get in a car accident and 3,328 people were killed in cell phone distraction-related crashes in 2012.

EdgarSnyder.com

I recently found an article on The New York Times about a man trying to put an end to this problem.

New York Times article

Scott Tibbitts, a chemical engineer who built a company that made motors and docking stations for NASA, knows that texting and driving is a serious issue that needs to be resolved.  Over the past five years, Tibbitts has teamed up with American Family Insurance and Sprint to invent a gadget that may eliminate texting and driving related car crashes all together.  This gadget is designed to block all incoming and outgoing texts and phone calls directed to and from the driver.

American Family Insurance is now using telematics to measure driver behavior.  For example, telematics can determine if a driver consistently speeds or slams on the brakes.  They also send a wireless message when the car is in motion, as the phone sends a message to locate the car: both messages sent to the servers of Katasi, Mr. Tibbitt’s company.  This system is also used to identify the driver of the car.  The system is capable of blocking calls, email and other data, but initially the plan was to block texts.

With the rapid advancements in technology, telematics will likely be used in cars in the future. According to this article, “Ernst & Young predicts that by 2025, some 88 percent of new cars will have telematics and thus become so-called connected cars” (NY Times).

Unfortunately, due to the behavior problem of people not wanting to follow the “no texting while driving rule,” as well of mounting costs with unclear returns, Sprint was hesitant on agreeing to the deal with Tibbitts.  ‘”The technology works; the technology is there,” said Walter Fowler, a spokesman for Sprint. ‘It’s a matter of working out the legal issues. The legal uncertainty — that’s the major issue.’ The project, they said, is stalled, maybe indefinitely” (NY Times).

In the meantime, Mr. Tibbitts still pushes ahead, pursuing other cell phone carriers to invest in this revolutionary product. “It’s so hugely frustrating,” he said. “I’ve put five years of my life into this; we’ve put in millions. I’m convinced there’s a great business and convinced it will save a bunch of lives” (NY Times).