Nearpoints

Craig Mathias

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Using Handsets While Driving: A Tale of Two Solutions

Maybe an outright ban on using handsets while driving isn’t quite to your liking. Two alternatives illustrate the complexity of the debate.

By Craig Mathias on Fri, 01/06/12 - 7:53am.

. What's this?

OK, I know my (consistent, by the way) support of the suggested ban on using handsets while operating a motor vehicle hasn't been popular. The counterarguments range from the federal government overstepping its bounds (I agree with that one) to the fact that there are many more potential distractions while driving (also true, but irrelevant) to the classic fallback of other-idiots-can't-handle-multitasking-but-I-can. All of these fail at some level - the bottom line here is that property is being damaged, productivity is being lost, and, most importantly, people are getting injured and killed by the arrogance central to almost all arguments against the ban. Who cares about the facts (or anyone else, for that matter); it's all about me.

OK, well, let's just assume for the moment that you agree that using a handset while driving isn't a good idea. The easiest solution is to simply turn off that handset - case closed. But suppose the driver in question forgets to do that, or, worse, is tempted by the siren call of the airwaves?

Well, a good number of firms contacted me after my last post on this topic, and one of those was DriveSafe.ly (clever name, no?), which, in a nutshell, reads text messages and e-mails aloud. There's a free version, which appears to be more of a demo, and a "Pro" version, fronting a service that is billed monthly or annually, the latter being a much better deal. There's also an Enterprise version with SSL and BES support. OK, all well and good, but is this really a solution to distracted driving? You're navigating through construction on the highway, and a message comes in regarding the ever-present Big Deal, and you didn't quite hear it over the construction noise. What are you going to do? Pick up the phone? Feeling a bit distracted, now, are you? I'm skeptical that this is really a good solution, although it likely would fit within the letter of the law in those states that band handheld phone use while driving. This app might actually be more useful while stationary.

A better solution, IMHO, is to block the phone from use while driving, as is offered by ZoomSafer hardware/software approach. This is more complex than it sounds; consider that a given phone might belong to a passenger, be used on a train or other terrestrial transportation service, etc., and you get the idea. The benefits here regardless are aimed squarely at enterprise liability - fleets and such, where a collision could result in big trouble not just for the driver, but for his or her employer as well. A robust policy/analytics capability is included, and it is possible to configure for less-than-Draconian operations if that's what local policy so dictates. I think, though, that this is really more like it, and the next best thing to judicious use of the power switch. There's also a great White Paper on this subject available at the site.

Of course, all of the debate around handset use while driving is fundamentally about politics, and the legislative debate isn't going away, especially now that the NTSB has weighed in. But the easiest solution would be for handset users to simply know, again as Dirty Harry reminded us lo those many years ago, their limitations.