Dangers of texting and driving; new app will help prevent accidents

The Rhode Island attorneys at d’Oliveira & associates want you to be aware of the new technology that is out that can help stop people from texting and driving.

Risks Associated with Texting While Driving

Car accidents happen everyday.  They cause substantial property damage, severe injuries, and even take away lives altogether.  Unfortunately, most of these avoidable accidents are caused by negligence and inattention.  An increasingly leading cause of this is the "texting while driving phenomenon."  With the amount of capabilities in phones, people have become increasingly glued to them at work, in school, and even when operating a motor vehicle. Alarmingly, a recent study concluded that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving while under the influence of alcohol.  In 2010, approximately 3,000 people were killed in distracted driving accidents.  Moreover, Every year, the negligent and reckless act of texting while driving contributes to around 100,000 crashes.

So how do you resist the urge to read messages on your phone or to send a reply to someone while driving?  Although there may be no clear solution, individuals and companies are certainly working to diminish the risk.

What's Being Done to Combat This?

Initiatives to raise awareness on the dangers of texting while driving are well underway.  Through such initiatives, companies seek to encourage the public to make a lifelong commitment to safer driving and texting.  Numerous mobile phone applications have been released which have been specifically designed to prevent phone activities and block text messaging and internet surfing functionalities.   Linked up to the car, administrator sets up a speed limit after which the application starts running.  They work by disabling some of the phone’s functions such as notification alert sounds from incoming text or email messages, and phone calls. The app also sends a message that lets people know that you are driving at the moment.  The creators of the applications are also developing more platforms to be included in the application, as an effort to ensure road safety.  Among the most popular applications are tXtBlocker, CellSafety, Twextecution and iZUP.  AT&T DriveMode is another application that is available for Android, Blackberry and iPhone. 

Risks of Texting While Driving Still Exist

However, this free application does place the responsibility of requiring the driver to enable to app each time before driving.  Although the application is intended to mitigate the driver's urge to use their phones while driving, it is ultimately up the driver if he or she chooses to do so.  However, the purpose of these safety application is not to effectively have the user choose between driver or using the phone, rather, the purpose is to allow users to grow accustomed to limited phone use while driving and allow both driving and messaging to harmoniously co-exist. 

Brought to you by the East Providence auto accident lawyer – d’Oliveira & associates