I think all cars should be fitted with a low-level RF scrambling signal which ‘broadbands’ the mobile transmission within a certain small radius of the vehicle. This means people using a hands-free won’t be able to talk ‘on the go’ either but I see that as a good thing because: -
A) It is still nonetheless a distraction, as if drivers don’t have enough of them already, and I think someone here said it’s worse than having a conversation with a real person in the car? If I remember correctly it was because at least you have four eyeballs looking at the road instead of just two eyeballs from a brain trying to focus on a conversation with someone who has no interest in where or how you are driving.
B) How desperately important and urgent, even in this modern fast-paced world, is any conversation that you absolutely must take it there and then? And if you want to make an ‘urgent’ call then pull over and turn the engine off or get off at the next service station.
With respect, I hope your idea doesn’t catch on and mine does in the absence of a more perfect win-win solution. People are more interested in picking up that call than winning a brownie point.
I had a conversation just the other day with my next door neighbour who is 76 years old. He past his test in The British Legion as a young teenage man. He told me his superior congratulated him and gave him words of advice he’s never forgotten in those 50 odd years since... “I want you always to remember, you have now got a licence which can kill”.
Wise words to a newbie indeed - and just as applicable today...
P.S. And we have quite enough 'information gathering' as it is thank you (I wonder if he has a Sony PlayStation )
We are a voluntary "information gathering" solution for driver's who wish to prove they are not doing distracting actions on their phones while driving. If you don't want your information gathered you simply don't have to download/run the app. We are hoping to get enough rewards that people will care more about those than picking up their phones. My iPhone already has a gadget to stop me using it while driving. The off switch.
Anyway, how does the phone know if you are driving or just a passenger in a car?
That's great, but the fact is people are dying everyday from texting while driving so some people need extra incentive to be as safe as you on the road. There is no solution yet for distinguishing if some one is a passenger or not, however it's no question that using your phone as a passenger is also distracting. The amount of people who will show enough restraint to not use their phones while a passenger at all to "abuse" this system will be far and few between and when they do "abuse" the system they will be keeping the roadways safer.I'd like to know more about how it works out whether or not the phone activity was "dangerous" or "distracting". That sounds really dodgy to me!
We plan to have a basic version of the app released first that runs in the foreground and detects if it was running in the foreground the entire time. Some one wanting to send an email, text, browse the web, or phone call will have to turn off Drive Alive to switch to the native phone app that handles those other functions effectively ending your trip and you will no longer be gaining safe driving time credit. In future additions we plan to add background functionality which will track what apps are run/not run at the time Drive Alive is running in the background and will make the determination of distracting or not based off of that. Besides that, I have to say that, like Tone, it's not for me. I really have a problem with organisations who "sell" details of my movements to third parties!
Is there not a risk that drivers will use one phone to run the app and reap the rewards, while using a second phone to carry on offending?
If you have a problem with it you are not forced to use it. We will only be sending the information to people interested in giving rewards out (such as your health or car insurance companies in case they would like to offer you discounts for proving you are not texting while driving. A person would still be able to carry a second phone to offend on, however unless the phone plan was under a separate name it would be easy for insurance companies to catch such offenders and disqualify you from discounts. Is it not beyond the realms of software design to be able to monitor movement at speed, and BLOCK the use of the phone by linking it to the seat belt sensor?
The passenger should be allowed to use the phone only IMHO.
The problem would be to get people to install/not tamper/buy the car with this type of feature installed without incentives.Around this area, people know there is little chance of getting caught, and phone use on rural twisty roads IS dangerous!
And if I'm a passenger?
And don't say I would be more use helping the driver because that's as good as saying nobody should drive without a passenger playing lookout.
There are much more distracting things than having a front seat passenger using a phone. Kids in the back for one, maybe you would ban those?
We cannot ban kids obviously, but texting while driving (which is the main problem we are trying to solve) is way more dangerous than kids in the back. Texting while driving has been documented as being worse than drunk driving. I'm sure plenty of kids cause accidents, but not nearly on the scale of texting while driving. Schoolbus's would probably have the most crashes ever otherwise. It's called a mobile phone, because it is mobile. If I want to get emails while my wife drives me somewhere then I don't really see the problem with that.
At the risk of getting hate-mail from a fellow member, .
The great part about Drive Alive is that you will still be able to receive those calls if you want as its not a blocking app like the rest of them. The rest of the apps actually block you from doing that if you choose. With our app you are free to use your phone while driving, its just you won't become eligible for any of the rewards associated with Drive Alive. I wonder if DriveAliveApp will respond to this post or if it is just SPAM?
The
http://www.drivealiveapp.com domain has no individual "Registrant" information.
http://www.drivealiveapp.com/ contains no physical contact information (e.g. a street address)
http://www.drivealiveapp.com/ seems to be all about getting funding (money)
The contact e-mail address is at Gmail.com rather than the published web-site
It all seems US-based, so why post in a UK forum?
We are working to improve the website however we are very busy which is why we haven't responded quickly. We are sorry about that. For now it is US based, however we did file our patent pending for international protection for a reason we do plan to release this in other countries once we have a working model that is popularized in the US first. One step at a time. We are posting in all forums to try and raise as much awareness about Drive Alive as possible to help speed up development as well as hopefully building up a larger customer base for when it is available. _________________
And before mobile phones people were finding plenty of ways to get distracted and kill themselves and others.
I don't phone or text while I'm driving (I just don't have the skills) but when I'm a passenger I like to be in touch. We are social creatures (most of us), and I like the fact I can be having a conversation with someone the other side of the world while I'm travelling down the M1. My life doesn't depend on it but it does make me happier, and that has a knock on effect of making me act nicer toward other people. Then when I take over my stint of driving and my wife is texting her mates I'm less likely to get the red mist and start cutting people up.
I see any device for preventing mobile use on the move is just as ill though out an idea as speed cameras.
Yes there are lots of people talking while driving. Most of these are doing so perfectly safely, if they weren't then there would be carnage out there. A small number don't know when to put the phone down but don't penalise all of us for the acts of a few.
Well actually Drive Alive would be perfect for some one such as yourself as you are already some one who does not text while driving. Drive Alive plans to reward safe drivers like you. You will still be able to use your phone while being a passenger. Our app is a monitoring app not a blocking app. On top of that our app doesn't run unless you open the app. All other apps out there are marketed towards parents and employers to put on their kids/employees phones as a blocking mechanism that can't be removed that would inhibit you from using your phone while as a passenger. Drive Alive is much different I urge you to reread the information on the website.
Sorry I couldn't respond to these questions sooner. A lot of this was very valid concerns and also a good eye opener for us that we are not describing this as good as possible. We will update the website and the FAQ's accordingly asap to help avoid questions like this in the future. Please feel free to ask more and I will answer them asap on this forum.