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Textecution puts an end to teen texting while driving

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Filed under: Family Money, Technology, Transportation

With more and more research showing that texting while driving is a major distraction and can cause accidents it's no wonder that many states are imposing costly fines for drivers who choose to drive while intexticated.

Texting while driving is especially popular amongst teens, and preventing young drivers from disobeying cell phone laws is as hard as getting Maria Shriver to stop talking while driving.

Thankfully there's a simple answer to this problem for anyone with an Android phone, like the T-Mobile MyTouch, a program called Textecution.

Textecution is a program that runs on Android phones and uses the onboard GPS to know how fast the phone is moving. If it detects the phone traveling at speeds that indicate it is in a car, Textecution disables the texting functions of the phone.
But mooooom, your kid is sure to complain when you install this little application on their phone, "I need to be able to text when I am riding the bus to my soccer game! This isn't fair!" That's where Textecution moves from handy way to prevent teen texting to ingenious.

If your teen is moving too fast, but not the driver, they can send a request for access which will alert you and let you enable their text messaging functions with a simple text reply. Best of all, as part of National Teen Driver Safety Week, it's on sale for $1.99.

With more states putting texting while driving laws on the books, having a text addicted teen driver could get costly very quickly. Fines commonly start close to $100 and several states are trying to get laws passed that would make fines hundreds of dollars for a single offense.

On top of fines, a single accident can easily cost a few hundred for a fender bender to several thousand for a crash, not to mention the increased insurance cost for years to come.

Even though there's nothing in place to stop your kid from removing Textecution from their phone, other than you knowing later, it is a useful tool for preventing texting while driving and keeping your kid safe and focused when they are behind the wheel.

If you don't have an Android phone to use Textecution with perhaps you should just sit your kid down to watch this, very graphic, PSA from the UK that explains the dangers of texting while driving in an unforgettable manner.
If you're interested in transportation, you may like
these related sites for: Maps, Driving Directions, Travel, and Cars.
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