01/18/2010 3:00 am
Sheconomics
Will This Put a Real End to Texting While Driving?
Recently I met Darcy Ahl, a mother of a teenage boy, who had an experience that spooked her. As a new driver, her son had a certain attachment (who doesn’t at this age?) to his cell phone. Darcy researched the laws in place for texting while driving. She came to the same conclusion we are all coming to: There are no really effective rules in place to prohibit drivers from using their phones or texting devices.
Rather than throw up her hands in defeat and then cross her fingers that her son would be safe, Darcy turned to technology and helped create iZUP. Perhaps it will interest you – it did me!
Darcy’s Story:
Like many women my age, I took time off from my career to raise a family. At the age of 44, I found myself back in the workforce and highly productive as an executive recruiter. But I always wondered, besides my progeny, what would be my legacy? What would I or could I do in this world to truly make a difference? Then one summer day I had an experience that altered the course of my life and, I hope, will result in a meaningful impact.
I was riding in my car with my 16-year-old son driving. He’d recently acquired his learner’s permit and we set out on I-95 for some highway training. My cell phone rang and, almost immediately, his cell phone rang as well. As he struggled to fish it out of his pocket, we crossed the dotted line on either side of us. At 60 MPH, we were fortunate that nothing happened. It was, however, quite obvious that something easily could have. When I returned to my office and recounted my experience to my business partner, Frank, I closed by saying, "I wish there were some way to keep him off the phone while he’s learning to drive." Frank looked at me and replied, "Maybe there is."
By the next morning, we had a concept for a product. We then began to look into the numbers around distracted driving, and among teens in particular. The number of injuries and fatalities was alarming, and staggering. We realized quickly this was an epidemic in the making, and so set out to assemble a team to turn our vision into a reality.
Three years later, the issue of distracted driving is finally getting the attention it deserves. Lawmakers around the country are pushing legislation to ban the deadly habit of texting behind the wheel. Hands-free laws are in effect in many states. But as Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood noted in his opening remarks at the DOT’s Summit on Distracted Driving: "In the end, you can’t legislate behavior."
Our company, Illume Software, believes this to be true. We also believe that behavior must be changed with regard to cell phone use behind the wheel. Handheld devices are more like computers every day. You can read e-mails, send texts, talk, receive stock quotes, check the weather, shop or even watch an episode of your favorite show, all on something that fits in the palm of your hand. And impatient society that we are, we all seem to believe we can safely do all of these things while also operating a motor vehicle. This dangerous and deadly behavior must be unlearned.
Legislation, education and technology can work together to solve this problem. No one solution can stand alone. "Laws don’t work, technology will" has been our mantra all along. Now that awareness of the issue is finally at fever pitch, we and others committed to the cause can focus on bringing these three forces together to change behavior.
So how does it work? Our initial offering, iZUP, is an application that works on GPS-enabled smartphones. When the phone is detected to be traveling in excess of 5MPH, the application launches and all calls and text messages are forwarded to storage for later retrieval. iZUP always allows communication with 911 and up to three pre-selected numbers, which work on an incoming and outgoing basis (mom, dad, home for instance). Certain preselected apps, such as voice navigation, are also allowed.
If a 911 call is initiated, the application shuts down, allowing communication between the subscriber and emergency services. Concurrently, the account holder (likely the parent in the case of teens) receives an e-mail and text message indicating an emergency and a Google map providing its exact location. Version 2.0 of the application will also detect when and if the subscriber is on a train or bus and allow the handset to function normally.
Clearly this issue effects more than teens. Government and municipal employees, mobile sales forces, truck drivers and adults in general are all at risk due to the same convergence of bad habits. We believe we can leverage location-critical information to help mitigate these risks.
We hope many will make it their No. 1 New Years’ Resolution to unlearn dangerous habits. iZUP can help.
(And go to Darcy’s website to learn more at www.getizup.com)
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33 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I’m a strong believer in personal choice and parental responsibility, so if parents want to require their teenages to use this application — so be it. Personally, I think it demonstrates a lack of trust and I would not use it.
There seems to be such an uproar about cell phone use causing accidents — what about people who eat or drink hot beverages while they drive? Both these behaviors are dangerous to do while driving also.
When my kids were new drivers, I didn’t allow more than one friend in the car and told them not to turn on the radio. (Yeah…like they did what I said…but my point was they had to limit distractions and focus on their driving.) The issue of mobile phones certainly ramps up that concern.
iZUP is a great idea except for kids who drive and also take buses, trains, etc.
I love this and wish that it were mandatory in all cell phones. I have been rear ended several times by people on cell phones claiming they didn’t see traffic stopped ahead. The companies who want to put computer access in the front seats of cars appall me. Don’t they realize that distracted or youthful drivers have enough to contend with now?
Inventions such as this are not an indication of lack of trust in drivers rather than an acknowledgement that distractions can and do happen. I see far too many people today hop in a car and automatically pick up their cells to talk to pass the time. The real focus should be on the road not taking to a friend, negotiating the terms of a contract, or putting in an order for food. There in no undo for accidents no matter how sorry you are for the outcome.
A couple of years ago NPR "Car Talk" hosts Click and Clack were promoting bumper stickers that read, simply:
DRIVE NOW. TALK LATER.
So any device that will help folks do just that is A-OK by me. I see far too many people (especially younger drivers) trying to multitask behind the wheel of a car going 65+ MPH. Yikes! It would be lovely to believe we can all use our critical thinking abilities and stop texting and driving, but that will not happen in the real world.
Yep. And - I am just waiting for the lawsuits against car manufacturers who install distracting devices in their cars. "I never would have crashed if I wasn’t fiddling with the [insert gadget here]." I believe in personal responsibility, but many others don’t - and the car manufacturers are part of the problem for providing more distractions in the car.
We spent some years in Germany - the driving culture there is VERY different - their cars (for the German market) don’t even come with cupholders because you are supposed to be DRIVING, not picnicking in your car at 120 MPH on the Autobahn. And hands-free has been the law for years already. Some German officer friends who came to school in the US were very surprised at all the stuff that comes standard on German-made cars for the US market. Then again, they spend two years in driving school, it’s very expensive, and then they are on probation for a couple of years as new drivers. They don’t often take stupid risks because it’s too easy to lose their licenses.
There you go, CT - when insurance companies get on this, and make the cost of driving prohibitive we’ll all be safer.
But, it’s a shame people cannot control themselves, or their kids! Technology as such (socially) has gone too far with most youth - I was shocked lately when I went on Facebook and checked names (I’m not a member). One of my own grandchildren has accumulated over 650 "friends." Other shocks came when I saw adults had uploaded photos of their children, or grandchildren! Do they not know what can happen to those photos, indeed, even their own?
Abject Narcissism has taken over society in America to a tragic level, and it won’t stop with Facebook. People are just nuts and the last 9 years here have been unbelievable, tipping the scales of mental health in the wrong direction.
Good for you, but still - be CAREFUL on those sites. What-you-see-is-not-all-you-get!
btw, there’s a new bumper sticker in Texas - something like (sic) "If you believe in God, honk once. Text if you want to see him." something like that - forgive my pathetic effort. It is a challenge for me to believe anyone could imagine seeing their god by endangering lives, though.