Your Phone Is Locked. Just Drive.
By DAVID POGUE April 28, 2010
The statistics on distracted driving are pretty scary. Just making cellphone calls increases your chances of crashing by four times; sending text messages increases the risk 23 times.
We know this, we get this, but we keep doing it. About half of all teenagers admit to texting while driving, for example, no matter how many statistics and horror stories we pass along to them.
If you're a concerned parent or employer, therefore, you may want to consider fighting technology with technology. There's a new category of cellphone apps made just for this purpose: text blockers like iZup, tXtBlocker, CellSafety and ZoomSafer. When your car is in motion, they lock up your phone so you can't text, call, e-mail or surf the Web.
How do they know when you're driving? They rely on your phone's GPS to calculate your speed. If it's more than five or 10 miles an hour, it's pretty clear that you're no longer walking. (You could be riding your bicycle, of course. But come to think of it, that's probably not a great time to be texting, either.)
You'll know when the software is in effect: your screen is covered by a "MESSAGES BLOCKED" screen. Incoming calls go directly to voice mail; incoming text messages don't appear until you stop driving.
They all let you dial 911, and they all let you set up certain phone numbers in advance (like your parents') that work even when everything else is blocked. But otherwise, you quickly realize that you're wasting your time trying to bypass the blockade, and you focus on getting where you're going so you can get back to your phone. Which, of course, is the whole idea.
The four apps are very similar - they all drain your battery faster, they all take a couple of minutes to "notice" that you're moving. But there are some differences, in features, philosophy and the Passenger Problem. (Which is, How can I bypass the block if I'm not the one driving?)
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