The Safecell application for iPhone and Android phones gives incentive to choose not texting or calling while you drive. I really like the idea of this app, which actually rewards users who leave their cell phone alone while they drive. I need encouragement to put the phone down as much as everyone else. Lately, there has been a lot of discussion about distracted Alberta drivers, and this could be a very handy tool to let people avoid the texting and driving trap.
Like most iPhone users, I’m an addict. I check email, facebook and Twitter. I like texting, and when I’m at loose ends I might play a game or two on my phone. With all of these fun activities, it is so tempting to continue texting and using the phone while I am in a vehicle, even if I’m the driver. It doesn’t seem that dangerous, does it?
Well, the evidence shows that texting while driving reduces your reaction times to a 70 year old driver, or worse. Texting is responsible for a lot of traffic accidents, many of them resulting in death. Society needs to find a solution to this problem.
Safecell can help drivers make the right choices. If you start up the Safecell app when you start your trip, it tracks your position and notifies you of local laws regarding cell phone use in vehicles. When a text or call comes in, Safecell will warn you of the potential consequences of picking it up while driving.
But the best part about Safecell is that it records a users cell phone use while driving, awarding points for safe behavior. Users can eventually trade these points for all sorts of rewards, with vendors such as Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many others. 500 points are valued at $5, and the users of Safecell get a point for every safe mile driven.
With all of the great rewards available, it is an awesome way to earn an iPod, Amazon products, even travel vouchers from a cruise line. At the same time, the roads will be safer in places like Alberta, Canada. It’s a win win situation, so please, check out the Safecell Application and see if it’s right for you.
Millions of cell phone users text every day while driving, and studies as well as common sense show this to be a very dangerous activity. Fortunately, new smartphone apps are appearing on the market to help keep people from texting while driving. One such application is Otter, now available for Android and Blackberry. Sadly, it was not yet available for iPhone when this post was written, but hopefully soon will be.
Otter lets phone users control their texting in a vehicle in more than one way. There is a really good video which shows the features of Otter, better than I can describe them (check out the Otter video here). GPS based motion sensing technology allows the user to set Otter to block incoming texts and calls, if so desired. While the vehicle is in motion, the Otter app will silence alerts and ringtones and allow the driver to focus on the task at hand, driving. At the same time, customized reply messages can be created which allow users to inform callers and texters that they aren’t being ignored, and their message will be returned when safe.
Parents can set Otter to do these functions in their teenager’s phone, with a password. This allows parents to set ground rules for their driving aged children to keep them safe behind the wheel, eliminating temptation.
My personal opinion is that spouses should be able to passcode the phones of their husbands and wives with the Otter application to keep them safe behind the wheel, not just teenagers. Everyone seems to be in denial about how dangerous it is to be a distracted driver. Yes, teenagers are texting and driving, but so are housewives, salesmen, and truck drivers!
I would love to try out Otter myself, but unfortunately that isn’t possible on the iPhone at this time. Apple, get with the program and help us have this functionality! You don’t want Android to get the drop on you, do you? Texting and driving is a safety issue, and phone manufacturers are enabling people to make poor choices. I think all of the companies which put phones on the market should be trying to eliminate cell phone use by drivers.
Let’s face it, the nearly irresistible urge to text while driving is a really big problem. Almost all of us who text are tempted to keep doing it while we are behind the wheel. The facts are in, and it is a dangerous thing to do. It places you and everyone on the road around you in a lot of danger. It makes me wonder, how many people have died from texting while driving?
According to one website, Edgar, Snyder and Associates, a law firm specializing in representing injured people,there is a lot of hard evidence that cell phone use and texting played a big part in a lot of car crashes. They claim that “in 2007, driver distractions, such as using a cell phone or text messaging, contributed to nearly 1,000 crashes involving 16- and 17-year-old drivers”. That is statistics where only those in that age group were involved, and only those that admitted to or were specifically seen using their cell phone. These statistics don’t count 30 year olds, for instance, and almost all the 30 year olds I know think it is perfectly fine to text while driving.
Another statistic from that same site claimed that in 2008, “at any given moment, over 800,000 Americans were texting, making calls, or using a handheld cell phone while driving during the daytime”. That is a scary amount of distracted drivers. If you drive in North America, it seems pretty likely that you must be one of the culprits since it is so wide spread. What are you going to do about your behavior?
Apparently, between 2001 to 2007, an estimated 16,000 distracted drivers were killed in the U.S. because of texting or using a cell phone. The numbers sharply increased after 2005, as cell phone subscriptions rose. This sounds like a no brainer. People are dying, simply because they don’t have their mind on the road. I haven’t found the statistics for Alberta yet, but I am sure that distracted drivers in Alberta are just as much of a problem.Everyone needs to be proactive, not just with their teenage son and daughter, but with their own actions. I’ve texted behind the wheel. I have to stop. Right now. What are you going to do?
Well it seems like the Lady Gaga juggernaut is still steamrolling its way through our culture, but it still makes me wonder, who is Ledy Gaga? Why are these individuals looking for Ledy Gaga ending up at the Redneck Bar and Grill?
Every day, searchers come to our humble site in search of Ledy Gaga. They find Ernie’s thought provoking post about the popular artist, Lady Gaga. He discussed her outlandish videos, her songs, the choreography, and of course his own reactions to these videos. But somehow I don’t think these searchers would be happy with what they found. After all, they were looking for Ledy Gaga, not Lady Gaga. And again, who is Ledy Gaga? Does she sing “Jest Dence”, “Allandandejero”, and “Puker Face”?
It is possible, I suppose, that these poor lost internet challenged souls simply typed ‘Lady’ incorrectly. Or it could be that searchers using another language than English are responsible for these results. Or it could be that there is another famous personage out there, Ledy Gaga. My own quick search, using the phrase “who is Ledy Gaga”, yielded mostly Lady Gaga results. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t out there. After all, every day someone types ‘Ledy Gaga’ into a search engine and ends up at the Redneck Bar and Grill. It just doesn’t make any sense. What do us Alberta beer drinkers have to do with it?