About 1.56 trillion texts were sent in the USA in 2009, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association. How many of these were sent while the person was driving is unknown. What is known is that distracted driving, including texting while driving, is the number one cause of car accidents.
These types of car accidents can be avoided, and one company is taking steps to do just that. Manage Mobility, a national management and logistics firm for wireless services, recently announced a new partnership agreement with WebSafety, Inc., the leading provider of software solutions that help to prevent incidences of distracted driving, to utilize the company's CellSafety mobile application which disables texting and emailing in a moving vehicle in order for Manage Mobility's enterprise, public sector, and government clients to increase their employee safety and significantly reduce operational liability.
WebSafety developed CellSafety in response to the concern over teens texting, and the industry-based software grew out of that, CEO Rowland Day says. "We believe that employers are becoming fully aware of the extension of liability" for crashes caused by employees texting while driving, he says. CellSafety uses proprietary technology to electronically detect when a car is moving at speeds above 10 mph and prohibits the driver's ability to send or read text and email messages or utilize the phone Web browser. According to the company, CellSafety is the only application that works on all four major wireless carriers and works with the BlackBerry, Android and Symbian wireless operating systems.
According to a report in USATODAY, several applications disable cell phones when a vehicle is moving, preventing texting or surfing the Web. These apps, including iZup, tXtBlocker, ZoomSafer and CellSafety, use a phone's GPS to determine when a vehicle is moving, and block the ability to text when the car is going faster than 5 or 10 mph. Some apps have opt-out features for passengers. The apps do not work on the iPhone.
This type of technology can prevent a car accident. It can also prevent an employer from being sued when their employee is texting while driving within the course and scope of his employment. It is a win-win situation for all drivers.
Driving can be dangerous even for the best drivers. Adding good and bad drivers using their text messaging devices just exposes us all to more car accidents.
If you or your loved one is injured because of a car accident caused by a distracted driver, it is important that you have someone on your side who knows what needs to be investigated. Personal Injury Attorney Matthew Noyes has been in the personal injury field for over 22 years. Contact him for a free case consultation. His Tampa Bay law firm--Perenich, Caulfield, Avril & Noyes--has been caring for clients since 1955. We see you through.
