"Apps try to monitor, tame texting drivers; One new system offers rewards; specialists wary of interactions" by Michael B. Farrell | Globe Staff, December 09, 2013
Most public safety campaigns against texting while driving take a “just don’t use your cellphone” approach.
But for local software engineer Paul English, the solution is to turn technology against itself. How? With a smartphone, of course.
English has designed an in-car app that awards points for safe driving, but takes them away for texting.
It joins a growing number of apps that aim to convert the device that contributes to distracted driving into a tool that combats the problem....
But not every app is being applauded. Many safety advocates worry that some well-intentioned developers may only be adding one more dangerous distraction.
Becau$e it is really about something el$e entirely.
“I’m not sure that creating an app that creates more interaction while driving is the best way to prevent distracted driving,” said Rocco Panetta, spokesman for the Texting Awareness Foundation, an antitexting and driving advocacy group based in New York. “The easiest technological solution is to turn the phone off.”
Or not bring it at all.
But in the age of ubiquitous smartphone use, that’s not realistic, said English, a cofounder of the popular travel site Kayak.com who recently stepped away from his daily role there. Most people have become so conditioned to using smartphones that it’s “fantasy” to expect them to go cold turkey behind the wheel, he said.
“It’s a fact of life that people are using their mobile phones to get better information, like GPS, while they are driving. That’s not going to change,” English said.
Related: Kayaking Away From the Boston Globe
Don't text from the canoe.
He believes that by using a smartphone to reward drivers for not reaching for it every other minute, they may actually pay more attention to practicing good-driving habits.
English’s app, called Road Wars, debuted in November....
Sigh. It is literally a war paper, be it promoting the actual thing with lies or framing every single f***ing issue, no matter how innocuous, in those terms. I suppose that is one rea$on among many that I don't like reading this $hit anymore.
To understand just how prevalent smartphone use is among motorists, just look around on the road. Ray LaHood, former US secretary of transportation, has called distracted driving an “epidemic on America’s roadways.”
I'm not endorsing texting while driving, but I'm all out of edge-of-my-seat urgency for whatever is the latest fear-mongering concern.
At any given moment, about 660,000 motorists across the country are using some kind of electronic device while driving, according to the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That behavior contributed to more than 3,300 traffic fatalities and 387,000 injuries in 2011, the agency reported in April.
I think I'll walk.
Massachusetts and 40 other states have bans against texting while driving, and 12 have outlawed handheld phone use altogether while driving.
“It’s already against the law and yet people do it anyway,” said Patricia Jacobs, president of AT&T New England. “Ninety-eight percent of people know texting and driving is dangerous, and close to 50 percent of them will do it anyway.”
I don't.
For AT&T’s “It Can Wait” campaign to stop texting and driving, the company developed an app called DriveMode that can send automatic replies to anyone contacting a driver’s smartphone. The app kicks in when the phone detects the car is moving faster than 25 miles per hour.
“It serves as a reminder that people shouldn’t be texting and driving,” said Jacobs. “You can ruin the lives of others on the road by engaging in this very risky behavior. We really want to make texting and driving as unacceptable as drinking and driving.”
Which also happens every day and night all across this country.
But DriveMode works only with Android and BlackBerry devices. A chief complaint among safety advocates and some software developers is that Apple Inc. will not allow outside applications to override the core functions of the iPhone — such as receiving texts or phone calls — no matter where the device is being used.
Apple did not return a call seeking comment.
“It’s a public policy issue that Apple needs to get out ahead of,” said Mike Moen, chief executive of Drive Power LLC, a Minneapolis startup that developed an app called DriveScribe....
Time to get off the Boston Globe road.
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Related: Massachusetts Text Trap
I'll text you about the tolls when I hit the bridge.
