It’s well-known that cell phone use has played a significant role in distracted driving accidents and fatalities. The silver lining is that bright minds, technology, and our smartphones have teamed together in recent years to develop apps that, if used, are designed to decrease distracted driving and benefit those that stick to it.
Distracted driving led to 3,166 deaths in 2017. For parents, the following apps will help you feel more at ease when your teen drivers hit the road.
Lifesaver
This one is for the parents. Do you want to ensure your child isn’t using their smartphone while driving? Lock it. The Lifesaver app allows you to do this. The app also allows you to track their driving and will alert you when the driver reaches their destination.
DriveMode
This app is available to iPhone and Android users. DriveMode is designed to mute incoming calls and texts if the vehicle reaches speed 15 miles per hour or above. The app also limits distracted driving by enabling voice control, which allows drivers to respond to messages and control their music and navigation hands-free.
Drive Safe.ly
This app has one purpose, to cut down users from picking up their phones and reading text messages while behind the wheel. Dive Safe.ly accomplishes this by reading an audio version of the message to the driver, it then sends the message sender a text stating the driver cannot return the message right away. This feature alleviates the driver’s impulse to look down at their phone and the sender’s desire to keep send multiple messages that would further distract the person behind the wheel.
Safe Drive
Do you or your teen driver love to shop? If so, consider download Safe Drive. The app doesn’t have the special features like those listed above, but those that download and enable it will be awarded points to use when shopping with Safe Drive’s partner companies.
The feature that gets the shopper-driver to limit their phone usage? If you unlock your phone while on the road, you lose all the points you accumulated during that trip.
